


Keep Me From Flying Apart

by Joni_Beloni



Category: Emergency!
Genre: Angst, Bondage, Drama, First Time, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-04
Updated: 2011-08-04
Packaged: 2017-10-22 05:21:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/234287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joni_Beloni/pseuds/Joni_Beloni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Johnny needs help.  Will Kel give it to him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 5

**Author's Note:**

> All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended. Any similarity to any real person or any real person’s name is purely coincidental.

“Give it a rest Gage.  You’re out of line and you know it!”

Kel Brackett’s head came up at the sound of the angry voice in the hallway.  Of course it had to involve John Gage.  He frowned at Dixie, who widened her eyes and shrugged.  A quick glance down at Mrs. Harwood showed worried hazel eyes staring back up at him.  The elderly patient had been injured in an early morning apartment fire, and brought in by Dan Rogers, the paramedic filling in for Roy DeSoto while he was on vacation.  Kel had just opened his mouth to reassure her when a second agitated voice joined the first.

“ _Me_ out of line?  Oh, that’s rich.  You disappear during a fire and _I’m_ out of line?  Not only are you a lazy piece of shit, you’re a lousy paramedic.” 

Kel recognized Gage’s voice and felt his teeth grinding together as his jaw tightened.  He took great pains to ensure that his ER ran smoothly and professionally, and it irked him to hear Gage disrupting it once again.  Sighing, he forced a smile to his face and patted Mrs. Harwood’s shoulder.  “You’re going to be just fine, ma’am,” he told her.  “I’m going to leave you in Miss McCall’s capable hands now.  She’ll see that you get admitted and moved to a private room.”  As he pushed the door open, a jarring thud sounded a few feet away, and he stepped into the hallway to find Gage pinned to the wall by his temporary partner.

“Take it back, you lying piece of trash,” Rogers hissed, his handsome, freckle-dusted face contorted with rage.  His substantial forearm pressed against Gage’s neck, cutting off his air.

“What the devil is going on?” Kel demanded.  Concern replaced irritation as he registered Gage’s difficulty breathing.

Gage’s wide gaze tracked over to Kel, then back to Rogers, his dark eyes filled with some intense emotion that Kel couldn’t quite decipher, but which contained both surprise and an odd vulnerability.  Kel gave him a hard stare, wondering at his unnatural stillness.  He would have expected him to be struggling with every ounce of wild, wiry energy he possessed.  Growing alarmed, he reached out to give Rogers’ shoulder a vigorous shake.

“Let him go,” he ordered.  “Rogers!  You have about two seconds to back away before I get security down here.”

Rogers growled low in his throat, his jaw clenching and unclenching, then snatched his arm away and spun to put his back to Kel, hands on hips as he panted out his agitation.

Gage straightened slowly, rubbing his throat.  He blinked rapidly and the vulnerability vanished in an instant.  With eyes gone stormy, he took a purposeful step towards Rogers just as the other paramedic turned around.  Seeing Gage advancing on him he growled again and made as if to lunge at him.  Kel stepped between them, not knowing what had set them off like this, but certain he needed to separate them immediately before whatever this was progressed any further.  Gage froze, glaring at Kel.

“Johnny, don’t move.”  He waited until he was sure the other man would obey, and then turned back to Rogers.  “You,” he said, pointing a finger at Rogers, “wait in my office and don’t leave until I get there.”

“Doc, I’ve had just about enough -- ”

“Go.  Now.”  Kel folded his arms and maintained his stance until finally Rogers rolled his eyes, sighed as though deeply aggrieved, and stomped down the hall.  Kel turned to a visibly seething Gage and grabbed him by his bicep.  “Come with me,” he said, and hauled him into the nearest empty treatment room.  Inside, Gage jerked out of his grasp.  Kel shut the door behind them.

Every line of Gage’s slim body radiated his own brand of mulish defensiveness which never failed to irritate Kel.  The young paramedic paced back and forth in the small confines of the room, his movements jerky, all the while scowling, his expression made darker still by the smudges of soot on his forehead and cheeks.  He wore his turnout pants and blue jacket partially unzipped to show the white t-shirt.  Above the white vee of the t-shirt, his skin was tanned and smooth.

 Growing dizzy from Gage’s frenetic movement, Kel pointed to the exam table in the middle of the room.  “Sit,” he ordered, and was surprised when Gage complied after only a brief hesitation.  Kel moved closer, inhaling the sharp scent of smoke and forcing himself to keep his gaze on Gage’s face and not allow it to linger on his strong, slender neck.

“You want to tell me what that was all about?” he asked, more harshly than he had intended.

Gage’s mouth tightened into a thin line but he remained silent, his gaze fixed at some point over Kel’s shoulder.  Kel stepped closer, braced a hand on the exam table next to Gage and leaned in, getting right into his space, his face inches from the paramedic.  He could see a faint blush darken Gage’s cheeks and ears and hear his breathing speed up, coming in hard pants through flared nostrils.  Dark, wary eyes met Kel’s, then shifted downwards, thick lashes concealing their expression.

If Kel had not been standing so close, he would not have realized that Gage had begun to tremble, but he could feel the faint vibration where his hand rested on the table.  Keeping his hand where it was, he moved back a little, and softened his voice.  “I asked you a question, Johnny,” he said.  When Gage remained stubbornly silent, Kel sighed.  “I find two of my paramedics in the midst of a shouting match in my ER, looking seconds away from erupting into an all out brawl.  I can’t have that, and if you don’t start talking – and I mean _right now_ – I’m going down to my office to get Rogers’ version.  Do you really want me to file a report reflecting only his side of the story?”

Gage exhaled explosively before finally looking up to meet Kel’s gaze.  “That guy – he just – he didn’t – he doesn’t -- ”

“Whoa.  Slow down and take a breath.”

Gage did just that, appearing to rein himself in with an effort.  He rubbed a hand over the top of his head before shooting Kel a vaguely accusatory look.  “It’s his word against mine, and you’d never take mine anyway, so do whatever you want.”

Kel took a step back, eyes narrowing.  “What are you talking about?”

Gage jumped off the table and started pacing again, waving his arms and talking a mile a minute.  “I’m talking about you, and how you would probably be plenty thrilled to see the last of me.  I don’t think you ever wanted me in the paramedic program.  Not really.  So here’s your big chance, Dr. Brackett.  Knock yourself out.  Do your worst.  Roy would probably rather have a nice regular guy for a partner.  Maybe good old Rogers would be just the guy.”  Having wound down, he exhaled loudly, shoulders slumping, and crossed his arms defensively over his chest.

Kel could only stare at the younger man, amazed at his outburst.  He took a moment to gather his thoughts, but Gage seemed to take his silence as confirmation of his accusations.  His mouth twisted into an angry grimace and he shook his head and then strode towards the door.  Kel went from puzzled, to annoyed, and to thoroughly pissed off in the space of about three seconds.  As Gage reached for the door handle, Kel grabbed his arm and spun him around, shoving him against the door and holding him there with both hands, their faces once more inches apart.

Gage opened his mouth to speak, and Kel gave him a rough shake.  “Don’t.  First of all, I resent like hell the implication that I have some sort of bias against you.”

“Doc -- ”

“No.  I’m talking now.”  He watched Gage until he was satisfied that the younger man was listening.  “Did Rogers endanger the patient in some way?  Johnny?”

Gage set his mouth stubbornly, but shook his head in the negative.

“All right.  Then since the patient’s well-being is not the issue, I don’t give a damn what sort of beef you have with him.  If it has something to do with his performance otherwise, take it up with Captain Hammer.  One thing I _will not tolerate,_ however, is another scene in my ER like the one I just witnessed.”  He felt Gage move restlessly, and tightened his hold on his shoulders.  “I don’t know what is going on with you, but you’ve been behaving like a petulant child for several weeks, and it stops now.  Do you understand?”

Gage banged his head against the door once in apparent frustration and stared up at the ceiling.  His jaw tensed and his lips compressed into a white line until finally he blew out a breath and spoke with quiet intensity.  “He walked away from the fire, Doc.  While I was working on the patient, and the rest of the guys were busting their asses to get the fire under control, Rogers strolled down the block to take a fucking smoke break.”  A muscle in his cheek jumped, but otherwise he held himself perfectly still.

Kel blinked.  “You’re kidding.”

Gage met Kel’s gaze.  “Oh, he’ll deny it, but I know what I saw.”

Kel nodded slowly, thinking.  He continued to stare at Gage, but his mind was on Rogers, and what would need to be done about him.  After perhaps a minute, when he focused his attention back on the man in front of him, he realized that he still had him pinned against the door, and was surprised at how good that felt, and further surprised that Gage had not objected or tried to struggle to get free. 

Puzzled, Kel tilted his head to one side.  “I don’t know why you thought I wouldn’t believe you, Johnny.”  No reply.  “I’ll talk to him, but you really need to bring this to your captain’s attention.  Okay?”  He waited.  “Johnny?  Have you got it under control now?”

Finally, Gage gave a jerky nod.

“It’s safe to let you go?”

“Yeah.  Sure thing.”

Kel kept his hands on Gage, his pulse picking up as the languid brown gaze drifted down to fix on Kel’s mouth.  Fascinated, he watched Gage’s tongue dart out to lick his lower lip.  The thick lashes lifted minutely and Kel found himself staring into Gage’s heavy-lidded eyes.  The sounds of the ER outside the door faded away.  Kel’s hands tightened and Gage didn’t flinch or move away.  Rather, he seemed to relax further, almost as if ready to melt into the door. 

Later, Kel would have time to reflect and wonder what possessed him to do what he did.  At that moment, however, he had ceased thinking, leaning forward at the invitation he imagined he saw in Gage’s sleepy gaze.  As if mesmerized, he slid one hand to rest against the side of Gage’s neck and let the other drift to his chest, ensuring that he wouldn’t move away from the door.  He held his gaze for several heartbeats, and then dipped his head to gently taste his lips.  Gage’s mouth opened on a muted moan which Kel felt more than heard.  Kel wasted no time thrusting his tongue inside to savor the hot, silky feel and the sweet, intoxicating flavor.  He groaned at the unexpected sensation of the slim body yielding sweetly against him.

Strong fingers rested against his chest and curled to grasp the collar of his white coat.  Excited by the response, he pressed closer, wedging his leg between Johnny’s and relishing the feel of the rough texture of the turnout pants, the slender, muscled body, and the soft pliant lips.  He heard a soft growl deep in his own throat, and thrust his tongue deeper, breathing in smoke and salt, and earthy, masculine sweat.

The kiss might have gone on indefinitely, but all too soon the door jerked behind Johnny as someone tried to push it open.  Kel lifted his head, but came back to himself a little too slowly to avoid the hard shove Johnny gave him.  He stumbled backwards, only just keeping his balance.  Panicked brown eyes stared back at him.  Johnny whirled around, yanked the door open and in his haste nearly plowed into the nurse who stood outside the room.  Kel felt as if rooted to the floor, but somehow managed to give Marie an apologetic smile before following Johnny into the hallway.  He watched Johnny’s retreating back as the younger man made for the exit.  Kel scowled, angry at himself.  He knew he had crossed a line he had promised himself he would never cross.  Instinct prodded him to race after Johnny and try to explain himself, but what could he say?  Instead, he turned towards his office and the other paramedic waiting for him.

Five minutes later, Kel watched Dan Rogers leave his office.  As Johnny had predicted, the paramedic had denied any wrongdoing, and had given a grudging apology for the scene in the hallway, while insisting that he had been driven to it by Gage’s wild accusations.  In the end, all Kel could do was lecture him sternly and warn him that if Gage decided to report the assault, that Kel would back up his story.  He doubted that Gage would do that.  As he headed to the base station to check in with Dixie, Kel shook his head, imagining the tense atmosphere in the squad as the two paramedics returned to the station.  At least their shift had ended by now, and Roy would be back in a couple of days.  He could have put the whole incident behind him if not for the lingering taste of Johnny on his lips, the memory of his body melting against him, and the deep regret Kel felt at his impulsive actions.

 

@@@@@@@@@@

 

The loose board on the front porch shifted when Johnny stepped on it, causing him to perform an awkward stutter-step to retain his balance before entering the house.  Like the outside, the interior was badly in need of paint and repairs.  Although he had cleaned it thoroughly, patched the roof enough to make it habitable and made a start at refinishing the oak floors, he knew it would be many months before he had the place looking decent.  Then he would have to start on the exterior.  The roof of the barn had collapsed decades earlier, weeds and long coarse grass filled the front yard, the long drive was filled with deep ruts, and the house, while structurally sound, had become a home for mice and who knew what other wild creatures.  A few weeks of hard work had made the house livable enough for him to break the lease on his apartment and move in, and another month of devoting every free minute and every spare cent he possessed had created the start of a comfortable, welcoming place to come home to.  The stove and refrigerator would need replacing soon, the bathroom fixtures were on their last legs, but it would all do for the time being.

As always when he entered the house, sadness and regret touched him at the thought of his aunt who had died alone, and he wished that he had found the time to visit her more often than he had.  It still seemed like a dream that she had left him this house and the surrounding property.  It had belonged to her cousin, who had died long before Johnny moved to California to live with his aunt.  He had a vague memory of visiting here once when he was perhaps thirteen and noticing even then how rundown it was.  His aunt hadn’t had the time, the money, or the inclination to maintain it, and until Johnny had been contacted by her attorney after her sudden death, he had completely forgotten that the place existed.  The deed had come with a brief letter from his aunt apologizing for the condition of the property, but when Johnny drove out here to take his first look at it, instead of decay and neglect he had seen endless possibilities.

As he leaned back against the front door, he considered the work still to be done on the rest of the property.  It would take months to finish all the repairs and improvements he had planned, and many more months before he could afford to buy any horses, but he gave a satisfied smile nonetheless.  Thanks to his aunt, his dream was coming true sooner than he had ever dared to hope.

His smile faltered as he thought about leaning against another door, of being pressed back against the exam room door, and Dr. Brackett holding him there, kissing him, owning him.  He felt himself grow warm all over again and let his eyes drift shut, conjuring up an image of what might had happened if they had not been interrupted.  His eyes snapped open and he thunked his head against the door, groaning softly.  “Why him, off all people?” he muttered.  As exhausted as he was after the difficult shift, he wasn’t ready to think about what would happen to their already strained working relationship, so he pushed himself away from the door and climbed wearily up the stairs to take a shower and grab a few hours sleep before tackling the loose board on the porch.

 

By the time it started to grow dark, Johnny had completed the repairs to the porch and put down a coat of primer on the walls in the living room and hallway.  He washed up and fixed himself a couple of sandwiches for dinner, eating standing up in the kitchen, and washed them down with a glass of ice water.  He had planned to spend the rest of the evening removing the faded wallpaper from the kitchen walls, but for once the idea of working on the house held no appeal.  Jittery and restless, he paced through the rooms downstairs before climbing the stairs to the bedroom.  He stared at the corner of the cardboard box protruding from under the bed, and chewed his lower lip in an agony of longing and indecision.  Crouching by the box, he pulled out a pair of lined leather cuffs, still in pristine condition, running his thumb over the supple material before lifting them to his face to inhale the rich scent of leather.  His heart picked up speed as he imagined some faceless someone fastening the cuffs to his wrists and securing him to the headboard, holding him helpless and secure while they buried themselves inside him and just pounded away….

Letting the cuffs drop back into the box with the rest of the unused items, most still in their original packaging, he wiped the back of his hand over his forehead and stood up.  What had he been thinking, buying all those things?  He’d wandered into that intriguing looking shop one day and seen the cuffs and known he had to have them, although he had been reluctant to examine the reasons for that too closely.  They had been sitting in the box under his bed for nearly a year, first at his old apartment and now here.  He pulled them out every so often, and sometimes went so far as to fasten them around his wrists to savor the feel of them, but he had never gotten up the nerve to bring someone back here to help him try them out.

Sighing, he shoved the box back under the bed with his toe and stared blankly at the far wall, rehearsing the scene in his mind:  someone offered to buy him a drink, this time he accepted, and they talked, and when the man asked, “hey, you want to get out of here?” instead of making a hasty retreat he smiled and replied, “yeah, sure,” and let him follow him home.  They stumbled up the stairs and into the bedroom, clothes melting away, and Johnny gave a wicked, sophisticated grin and let himself be bound to the bed.

He had grown hard imagining the scene, his breaths sounding harshly in his ears, and he considered bringing himself off, but tonight he craved something different.  He wanted someone else’s hot skin against his own, and someone else’s hands touching him, and he wanted to finally know what it felt like to be tied helpless and stretched open and entered and fucked ruthlessly. 

“I can do this,” he whispered to the empty room.  Tense and indecisive, he wasn’t sure how long he stood there.  He blinked rapidly and stood up straighter.  _Quit being such a girl,_ he chided himself.  _Quit moping around and go get yourself laid._   Nerves still had his heart racing, leaving him with the all too familiar sensation of growing insubstantial, as if he could fly into a million pieces or dissolve into nothing.  He took half a dozen deep bracing breaths to keep himself calm and anchored.  When he felt sure he wouldn’t disintegrate, he went to take a shower before dressing to return once more to _Vesuvius,_ determined this time to follow through on his desires, and to find the right person to help rid him of his ridiculous virginity.  And if not the right person, then the first convenient, warm, willing body he encountered.

 

@@@@@@@@@@

 

It was nearly eleven at night when Kel managed to leave the hospital and drag himself home.  After he backed into his driveway and cut the engine, he just sat in the car for a few minutes, staring stupidly at the dark windows of his neighbor’s house on the other side of the cul-de-sac.  It had been a brutal day, with one patient following the next in a seemingly unending parade of panic and blood and misery.  The only positive thing he could say about it was that he had been kept so busy that he hadn’t had time to reflect on his fuck-up with Gage.  Now, however, he could think of nothing else, and he cursed his moment of weakness.  Weakness?  Insanity was more like it.  This would have to be handled, and the sooner the better.  He slipped his hand in his suit coat pocket and fingered the slip of paper there.  Before the hospital records department had closed for the evening, he had called to get Gage’s home address and phone number.  As distasteful as the thought was, he would give him a call in the morning and see if he could drive by and have a talk with him. 

He hauled himself out of the car and winced as the echoing slam of the car door rattled his frayed nerves.  Feeling at least ten years older than his 35 years, he plodded toward the front door, looking forward to a generous glass of scotch, a hot shower, and a good night’s sleep.  Tomorrow morning he would do his best to smooth things over with one young, hot-headed paramedic, and then he could spend the rest of his day off sunning himself by his pool and finishing the spy novel he had been working on for three months.

As he lay in bed an hour later lazily stroking himself, he really, absolutely was not remembering a pair of warm, soft lips, or a slim, sweetly yielding body.

 

@@@@@@@@@@

 

Johnny listened helplessly to the unmistakable sounds of his home being ransacked.  After yelling and cursing at the top of his lungs and running several times through every filthy name he knew until he wore himself out, Johnny had subsided into seething silence.  His wrists were raw and chafed from jerking the metal cuffs against the solid oak headboard in a futile attempt to get free.  He felt the slow warm slide of blood down his arms.  A stray breeze wafted into the drafty old ranch house and he shivered, wishing, not for the first time, that he hadn’t been in such a hurry to shed his clothes. 

Jack had seemed so appealing when Johnny met him at _Vesuvius_ two hours earlier.  Tall, dark-haired, sleekly muscled, and handsome with a hint of mischief in his grey eyes, Johnny had been attracted to him immediately, staring and grinning like an idiot until the man had come over to sit next to him at the bar.  Charming, sexy and oozing self-confidence, Jack had pushed all of his buttons, and between the two of them, they had talked non-stop until, just like in his fantasies, Jack had suggested they move the party elsewhere.  Johnny was just drunk enough, and plenty horny enough to invite Jack to follow him home. 

After they stumbled upstairs to the bedroom, Johnny’s eyes had widened as Jack pulled a pair of cuffs from his jacket pocket and dangled them in front of him, grinning roguishly.  Johnny’s mouth went dry and he spared a quick glance to the box just visible under the bed, but not wanting to appear naïve, he just grinned back.

“Sounds like a plan,” he said, trying to sound and look as if he did this all the time.

“Outstanding,” Jack whispered, advancing on him, then seeming to think better of it and leaning against the doorframe.  “Why don’t you get undressed for me?”  The grin had faded, but his eyes retained an amused gleam.

Johnny swallowed nervously.  “Why don’t I?”  Suddenly clumsy fingers struggled with the buttons of his shirt.  He gave up and wrenched it off over his head.  Aware of Jack’s gaze following his every move, excitement filled him and he set to work unbuttoning his Levi’s, nearly losing his balance as he levered out of first one shoe and then the other.  His socks followed, and then he paused, feeling self-conscious in front of the fully-clothed man he had met not much more than an hour ago.  A glint of light drew his gaze to the gently swinging cuffs the other man held suspended by one finger.

“Come on,” Jack encouraged, wide smile back in place.  “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Johnny took a deep breath, stripped off his boxers and tossed them aside with a flourish.  His cock was hard and leaking, curving back towards his stomach.

“Nice,” said Jack, stalking toward him.  “On the bed now, on your back.  Let’s get this party started.”

“Okay,” Johnny agreed.  He lay down and stretched his arms over his head, shivering when he felt the cuffs click, cold and snug, around one wrist and then the other.  He gave an experimental tug and shivered again when the cuffs caught and held against the sturdy oak headboard.  Bending one leg at the knee, he looked over in satisfaction at the lube and condoms he had left out on the nightstand, and then he let his eyes drift shut.  He was so ready for this.  His whole body felt as if it was pulled taut in anticipation, tingling with warmth.  He smiled dreamily and let out a sigh which turned into a breathy moan.  “Oh yeah.  Let’s do this.”  Tugging on the cuffs again, he bent his other leg and settled more comfortably.  When he heard Jack moving around, he opened his eyes, and then opened them wider when he saw Jack going through his wallet.  “Hey!”

Jack eyed him and smiled sourly, shaking his head.  “You dumb queers are so predictable.  You’ll do just about anything for the chance to get a dick shoved up your ass.”  He frowned and held up the wrinkled five dollar bill he had pulled from the wallet.  “This is it?  You have got to be kidding me.”

“What the hell?  Put that back!  What do you think you’re doing?”

Tucking the five into his front pocket, Jack tossed the wallet on the floor and sat on the bed near Johnny’s shoulder, out of range of his thrashing legs.  “What am I doing?  Oh, come on Johnny.  Even you must have figured it out by now.”  He reached down and pinched a nipple hard.

“Ow!”

Jack chuckled.  “Now, don’t try to tell me that isn’t exactly what you were looking for tonight.  I see your type all the time.  You just want to be tied up and spanked.  You want someone to fuck you hard and make you scream like a little bitch.”

Johnny glared at him.  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”  The words emerged sounding sullen rather than angry.  His face felt hot and flushed with the humiliation of knowing that Jack was at least partly right.

Jack laughed again.  “Sorry to break it to you, but you’re going to be disappointed tonight.”  His hand trailed down Johnny’s chest and stomach to lightly grasp his cock.  “Even though – _my god, Johnny_ – even though you’ve stupidly put yourself in a position where I could do whatever I wanted to you.”  He slowly closed his hand until Johnny gasped in pain.  “And really, you would deserve anything I chose to do to you, _you unbelievably stupid shit._ ”  He released him, stood up, and wiped his hand on his jeans, grimacing in distaste.  “You’re in luck, though.  I’m going to let you off easy.  I’m just going to go downstairs, take all your stuff, and then I’ll be out of your hair before you know it.  So you just lay here like a good boy, keep your mouth shut, and quietly reflect on how much worse this could have gone.”

Shock held Johnny quiet for perhaps one minute before he erupted in shouted curses and threats which he knew were pointless.  He kept them up, though, as he listened to Jack wreak havoc on his home.  Thuds and crashes sounded from downstairs for an impossibly long time.  Johnny’s string of profanity wound down eventually and he lay panting and shaking with reaction.  Finally, the house fell silent and Johnny held his breath, straining to hear, and filled with wild imaginings of what Jack might do next.  When he heard the front door open he boiled over in a renewed fit of rage.

“Hey, you piece of garbage!  At least leave me the key before you go.”  He waited, listening.  A creak came from the first floor, as if the man had shifted his weight.

“Shut up, you dumb fag,” came the dismissive voice drifting up the staircase.  “It’s not like you got anything worth taking.  This place is a complete dump.”  A snorted laugh.  “I oughta come up there and beat the shit out of you just for wasting my time.”

Johnny’s heart thudded painfully in his chest as it fully sank in how vulnerable he was – how vulnerable he had made himself with his reckless actions.  Expecting the worst, he held his breath, dreading the sound of a booted foot hitting that third squeaky step.  Instead he heard a huff of laughter.

Jack muttered something which sounded like, “Pathetic.”  Johnny’s straining ears picked out the tiny _clink_ of a piece of metal hitting the flagstones of his entryway, and then his front door slammed shut and moments later he heard the sound of a car starting, and the crunch of gravel as Jack’s rusty grey Thunderbird roared off into the night.

He jerked his arms again, but the cuffs held tight.  A glance around his bedroom revealed nothing which might help free him.  His gaze drifted again to his nightstand and the lube, condoms and hand towel he had carefully arranged there before heading out to the club.  Years of fantasizing, months of nervous agonizing, and a grim sort of resolve had sent him back to _Vesuvius_ , and somehow he had managed to botch up the whole thing.

“Figures I’d end up inviting the biggest jackass in the place to come home with me,” he muttered bitterly.

He forced himself to take several deep breaths, trying to calm himself and not struggle against the cuffs.  As he relaxed into the mattress, he began to fully comprehend his predicament.  No one expected him to be anywhere for almost another day and a half.  When he didn’t show up for his next shift, Captain Hammer would send someone out here to check on him.  He gave a heartfelt groan as he pictured Roy or Chet or even his neighbor Marty finding him like this, naked, cuffed to the bed, with the accessories for his planned debauchery neatly lined up on the nightstand.  “Shit,” he muttered, not sure which prospect disturbed him more: being found or not being found.  At the moment both seemed equally appalling.

Anger built inside him, at Jack, at himself for being so reckless, and at Dr. Brackett for stoking the fire that he had kept so carefully banked.  He rehearsed his impending humiliation in his mind, picturing ever more dire consequences, including loss of whatever respect Roy and the rest of his shift mates had for him.  When he had worked himself up into a seething mass of frustration, worry and rage, he tugged savagely at the cuffs, kicking his legs and arching off the bed, and gave a wordless roar which reverberated through his house and out into the night, heard only by the nocturnal creatures creeping around his front yard. 

Exhausted, and having achieved nothing more than deepening the gouges on his wrists and hurting his shoulders, Johnny slumped back on the bed and listened to his own panting breaths and thudding pulse gradually slow to something approaching normal.  He didn’t know how long he lay there, staring sightlessly into the darkness, shivering in the drafty house and fighting the cold ball of dread which filled his stomach and chest.  Eventually he dropped into an uneasy sleep, waking every so often to renewed dismay at his situation.  As morning came and light gradually filled the room, he fell into a sort of waking stupor, counting the cracks in the ceiling and counting down the minutes until his life imploded.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Kel glanced down at the map propped against his steering wheel as he drove down the narrow two-lane highway. When he spotted the street sign nearly concealed behind the overhanging branch of a spruce tree, he hit the brakes hard, grateful that traffic was light this morning, even more so here than on the interstate. A right turn took him onto an even narrower, gravel road. A badly tilted, rusty mailbox with the house number barely visible in faded paint signaled that he had arrived at Gage's home. As he drove through the rotted remains of a wooden gate and jolted down a long drive made almost impassable due to deep ruts and thickly growing weeds, understanding dawned as to how Gage had managed to purchase property in this area on his fireman's salary. Definitely a fixer-upper. As he drove closer, he revised his assessment: several months of hard work might elevate it to fixer-upper status. No wonder Gage had been looking so wrung out lately. He must have been spending all of his days off making the place livable.

He parked his Porsche behind a dusty white Land Rover. Since Gage hadn't answered the phone earlier Kel assumed he had either been out and recently returned, or had been out of reach of the phone. He had made the decision to drive out here on impulse, spurred on by a restlessness that had settled over him since kissing Gage yesterday, and the memory of the paramedic's initial eager response.

Heavy rains earlier in the week had washed LA County temporarily clean, and invitingly bright blue skies and warm spring sunshine made a day at home seem less than appealing. The hour long drive out here in light weekday traffic had settled his agitation. He let the sports car fly up the highway far faster than he should have and by the time he arrived he had regained some of his equilibrium and felt ready to face what could prove to be a difficult conversation with Gage. He smiled wryly. In the time he had known him, nearly a year now, almost any extended conversation with Gage turned out to be difficult.

He opened the car door and unfolded himself from the low seat. Placing his hands on his lower back and arching slightly into a satisfying stretch, he allowed the morning sun to warm his arms and face while he looked interestedly around Gage's property. A crumbling barn bleached pale grey appeared on the verge of collapse, but the house and front porch showed recent signs of improvement. New shingles stood out in sharp contrast to the rest of the roof, and the stairs and porch boasted sections of fresh, unpainted wood. Seeing no sign of Gage, and somewhat surprised that he hadn't come outside at the sound of the Porsche's loud engine intruding on the quiet setting, Kel climbed the three steps to the porch, noting the careful workmanship on the repaired sections and inhaling the scent of new lumber. The door flew inwards with the first rap of his knuckles. He paused, eyebrows raised.

"Johnny?" He waited, then knocked on the doorframe and leaned his head inside. "Hello? Anybody here?"

He heard a muffled sound which might have been a response, and took a tentative step into the entryway. The toe of his shoe nudged something small and metallic which skittered in front of him, catching the sunlight streaming through the door. He bent to pick up a small silver key, clutching it absently in one hand as he gazed around at a large living room, a stairway to an upper floor, what was visible of a kitchen, and a hallway leading to the back of the house, all of which were in various stages of refurbishment. Even allowing for the obvious clutter created by the work in progress, the place was a mess. Broken glass and crockery littered the floor, papers and books lay strewn about as if a hurricane had swept through, and mounds of dry cereal and spoiling fruit made an unappetizing trail from the living room to the kitchen. One couch cushion leaned crazily against a red brick fireplace, and two more sat atop a tilted coffee table. A lamp rested upside down in the frame of the couch, its cloth shade crushed in the center.

"Johnny?" he called out, louder than before. "Are you around?"

This time he heard it more clearly from upstairs: a voice, weak, hoarse, and oddly resigned. "Up here."

Growing ever more concerned, Kel hurried up the stairs. Unpacked boxes and construction supplies filled much of the first room he checked. The second was a bathroom with an ancient linoleum floor and fixtures that had seen better days. He found Gage in the next room and froze, unable to do more than stare for several seconds at the unexpectedly erotic sight. Johnny lay naked on the bed, his wrists cuffed to the headboard, tendons in his arms and shoulders straining, eyes huge and pleading as he gazed back. Kel's mouth went dry and his cock began to harden. For just the briefest of moments, his stunned brain tried to convince him that Johnny had laid himself out like a feast just for him. Immediately on the heels of that thought, he realized that deep gouges accentuated Johnny's knobby wrists and dried blood streaked his forearms.

"Shit. Johnny..." he choked out. Two long strides brought him to the side of the bed. He reached out to run a hand over the cuffs, testing their strength, and then down one arm, brushing a thumb gently over the raw, angry looking wrist. "What happened?" Although he hadn't seen any sign of another person, he gave the room a quick scan, his perusal freezing for a moment at the top of the nightstand with its neat array of lube and condoms before continuing on, taking in the clothes piled in a haphazard heap near the bed and the open wallet lying next to them. By the time his gaze returned to Johnny's tense, wary features, he had a pretty good idea what had gone on. He wanted to berate Johnny for his recklessness, but he looked so miserable that Kel bit back the words and instead sat carefully on the edge of the bed and did a rapid visual assessment, striving to keep his interest strictly clinical.

"We need to get you out of these handcuffs," he said.

"I think," Johnny croaked, paused in obvious discomfort, gave a dry cough and tried again. "I think he dropped the key downstairs."

Kel let the "he" pass without remark. It only confirmed what he had already deduced. He nodded at Johnny, trying kept his expression neutral, stood and took two steps toward the door before he remembered the sharp bite of metal in his clenched fist and his mind gave an almost audible _click_ of realization. He opened his fist, stared at the small key he had found near the front door, and then leaned over Johnny to work the lock on the handcuffs, marshaling every ounce of willpower he possessed to keep his gaze away from Johnny's naked body.

Although he had already seen nearly every inch of the young paramedic in his role of doctor, seeing him like this, the graceful, slender physique splayed wantonly on the bed, was sending his thoughts down decidedly unprofessional byways. He turned the key to unfasten the cuffs and helped ease Johnny's arms down from where they had been restrained. When Johnny began to sit up and gave a grunt of pain, Kel held him gently in place and rubbed the knotted muscles in his shoulders, studiously ignoring the feel of the smooth, tanned skin, and refusing to allow his gaze to stray down to the long, beautiful cock lying slackly against a strong inner thigh.

"Ow," said Johnny, jerking upwards and shaking his hands, his entire face clenched against the pain. "Tingly," he gasped, and then groaned and froze as he seemed to see for the first time the damage done to his wrists. "Shit," he whispered, and started to tremble.

Kel crouched in front of Johnny and grabbed his hands, holding them palm up and turning them slowly to take a closer look at the extent of the damage. "Johnny." He waited until the younger man looked up and made eye contact with him. "Are you hurt anywhere else?" He waited again, and saw the moment that understanding dawned in the brown eyes.

Johnny's face and chest turned deep red. He shook his head vigorously and snatched his hands back. "No. We never got that far."

Johnny started to rise and Kel pushed on his upper thighs to hold him in place. "Johnny, you're going to be fine. Hold still and let me take care of these cuts."

"Doc, that would be great, but I've really got to take a piss." He stared over Kel's shoulder. "It's been kind of a long night."

Kel lifted his hands and stood, and then grasped Johnny's upper arm to help him to his feet. A second later he watched Johnny's firm, perfect white bottom disappear around the corner. His mouth snapped shut and he closed eyes and massaged his forehead, silently berating himself for his inappropriate, lewd thoughts. He cleared his throat. "I'm going to run down to the car to get my bag," he called after him. The only response was the sound of the bathroom door slamming shut.

Sighing, Kel turned and trudged down the stairs and out the front door to his car where he retrieved his medical bag from behind the passenger seat. Back inside the house, he took a moment to wander through the downstairs. When he peered inside the kitchen, he gave a low, amazed whistle at the extent of the damage. Every cabinet door and drawer stood open, the interiors empty, with the contents tossed onto the floor. Anything breakable had been smashed, and food had been strewn over the debris. An upended carton of milk propped open the refrigerator door, its contents pooled in a sour, sticky mess, mixing with a yeasty spill of beer, sliced meat and cheese. This had been more than a simple robbery. The scope of the damage spoke of some sort of demented rage.

"Christ," muttered Kel. He glanced at the ceiling, suddenly worried that Johnny had not been telling the truth about extent of his injuries. Carefully picking his way through the wreckage of Johnny's living room, he hurried up the stairs. The bedroom was empty.

Johnny's angry voice sounded, muffled by the closed bathroom door. Loud curses accompanied by a series of violent thuds echoed through the hallway. Giving a curse of his own, Kel tossed his bag on the bed, trotted down the hall and yanked the bathroom door open so hard it bounced off the wall and nearly crushed his hand on the rebound. Alarmed over the possible scenarios his imagination had conjured up in the few seconds before he got the door open, it was all Kel could do not to erupt in relieved laughter over the sight that greeted him. A naked Johnny directed an inventive string of curses at the toilet, as loudly as his strained vocal cords allowed. At the same time, he alternately jiggled the handle and kicked the cracked porcelain base viciously with his bare foot.

Kel's brief amusement quickly turned to concern that Johnny would do serious damage to himself. What had set him off like this? "Johnny!" He placed a hand on his shoulder and gave him a rough shake. Johnny didn't stop what he was doing, just swung back wildly with his free arm and kept kicking the toilet.

"Fuck! Fuck fuck shit!" His voice was so raw and hoarse that Kel had to wonder how long he had screamed out his anger and frustration during the night with no one to hear him. "Motherfuck! Cocksuck! Shit! _Shut the fuck up you fucking piece of shit!_ "

Eyes widening at Johnny's coarse language, Kel did the only thing he could think of to stop him from harming himself. He wrapped his arms around Johnny and pulled him backwards. Johnny put up a brief, violent struggle, kicking his feet as if still trying to wreak his vengeance on the innocent bathroom fixture, and squirming like something wild.

"Calm down, Johnny," said Kel, directly into the younger man's ear. He kept his voice deep and soothing, repeating the same words over and over. "Calm down. It's all right. I've got you. Calm down."

It seemed much longer than it actually took for Johnny to grow still, but when he did, it felt to Kel as if he simply melted into his arms, trembling and panting.

"Talk to me, Johnny. What's going on?" asked Kel, keeping his arms around him while resolutely ignoring the exquisite feel of the now quiescent, slender body in his arms.

Johnny gave a short bark of laughter, and Kel could see him flush red. "I - sorry, Doc. That damn thing...no matter what I do, I can't get it to stop running. It just - I think it hates me or something."

Kel couldn't help the amused snort of laughter that escaped. "Your toilet hates you?"

Johnny nodded, his mouth twisting a little, acknowledging the absurdity of his assertion.

"So you thought you would kick it into submission?"

"Something like that." His voice had grown breathless.

With his chin resting on Johnny's shoulder, Kel had a clear view down his chest to his groin and saw Johnny's cock begin to fill. His own cock gave an enthusiastic answering twitch and he realized that Johnny could hardly miss his hard length straining against his jeans and pressed flush against his crack. How easy it would be to tighten his hold and grind against him. _Oh god, that's just great. Why John Gage, of all people_? Wanting to defuse the situation and get Johnny calmed down - and himself as well - he released him slowly and moved back to put some space between them. Johnny kept his back to Kel, obviously embarrassed at his body's reaction.

"Let me take care of this for you, Johnny," he said. Realizing how that might be misinterpreted, he hastily clarified. "I have a pretty good touch with simple plumbing problems like this. Why don't you go relax for a minute while I take a look at it? Then I'll get you fixed up. All right?"

Johnny nodded mutely, edged his way around Kel and disappeared into the bedroom. Once more treated to a view of that enticing, perfect bottom, Kel bit back a groan and turned his attention to the still running toilet. He lifted the lid to the tank and shook his head, bemused, at the complicated arrangement of coat hangers, electrical tape and ancient, rusting metal. Grimacing, he reached into the filthy water, made a few deft adjustments to the rigged coat hangers, nudged the plunger and wiggled the ball. Finally satisfied that the tank would fill properly, at least temporarily, he replaced the tank.

He approached the sink next, eyeing it skeptically. It was at least clean, although stained darker in places from who knew what. He turned on the hot water and jumped back as water spurted wildly. He turned it down until it remained contained in the bowl, tested it and was relieved to find that Johnny actually _had_ hot water. After washing his hands thoroughly, he turned the pressure up again, poked a finger up into the faucet and decided it was probably just a washer that needed to be adjusted or replaced. As he dried his hands on a frayed but clean hand towel, he reflected idly on all the small things he had to learn when he first moved into his own house. Perhaps he could pass a few tips along to Johnny. A good excuse to spend more time in his company, he considered, half-amused and half-disgusted with the path his thoughts insisted upon taking. He wanted to throw Johnny down on the bed, kiss him senseless and pound into him until they were both sweaty and sated. As appealing as that sounded, they would have to face one another at work tomorrow, and Kel knew from experience that those sorts of situations could turn messy quickly.

Determined, for now at least, to stick to his role of doctor, Kel returned to Johnny's bedroom to find it empty. "Oh, for Pete's sake," he muttered. "Maybe I should put a bell on him." As he stepped closer to the bed to retrieve his bag, he stumbled against something sticking out from underneath the bed. Glancing down as he started to nudge it back out of the way, Kel froze, then crouched slowly and dragged the box out where he could see it better. _Well, well. What have we here_?

With one finger, he lifted a pair of leather cuffs, raising an eyebrow in surprise. Underneath this interesting item, he discovered a remarkable collection of restraints and cuffs, ranging from grey plastic children's' toys to fuzzy neon colored cloth, several other leather cuffs of varying quality, ropes of different materials, a selection of ankle cuffs, thigh restraints, blindfolds, and at the bottom of the box, underneath all of that paraphernalia, a small but well-thumbed collection of magazines displaying men in various and creative positions of bondage. He fingered the leather cuffs he still held, feeling the comfortable lining designed to avoid damage and noting the fastenings which could likely be worked free given enough time. Then he lifted the metal cuffs from where he had tossed them on the floor and shook his head at Johnny's choice.

Finally, he dropped the leather cuffs back in the box and shoved the box under the bed. With his bag in hand, he made his way down the stairs, half-expecting to discover another violent outburst in need of quashing. Once again, Johnny surprised him.

Dressed now in faded jeans which hung low on his narrow hips, Johnny moved around the living room with grim efficiency, setting the place to rights as much as he could. Kel entered the room and took a closer look at the younger man. The normally outgoing John Gage appeared to have withdrawn into himself. His mouth, so full and inviting when relaxed, had thinned into a tense frown, and his eyebrows were drawn together in a thunderous scowl.

"Johnny...this can wait. Let me take care of your wounds first."

Johnny plucked the damaged lamp from the couch and set it upright on the floor. He stalked around the room retrieving one cushion at a time, fitting each one into the couch frame with a sort of precise fury. Kel watched, trying to decide what to do next. A crunch sounded. Johnny winced and Kel realized belatedly that he had been walking barefoot through the wreckage on the floor. He stepped closer to grab Johnny's arm, only to have it wrenched from his grasp.

"Stop, Johnny. Just stop for a minute. Sit down before you cut your feet to ribbons."

Johnny straightened with his arm full of books. One must have rubbed against his wrist because he gave a squawk of pain and dropped several books before hurling one against the wall and sending the others after it in a flurry of ruffling pages and cracking spines. He spun in a circle, limbs flailing as if unsure how to vent his anger and then lashed out with his bare feet, kicking at whatever was in range. Shards of glass and chunks of food sprayed in every direction. Johnny grunted with each kick and then gave a hoarse howl of pure, frustrated rage.

Kel grabbed for him again, but Johnny lurched out of reach as his rampage continued. Flecks of blood dotted the wood floor. Determined to halt Johnny from causing himself further hurt, Kel rapidly judged the distance and timing, waited, and then surged forward to catch Johnny in a flying tackle that left him face down on the couch with Kel pinning him under the weight of his own body. Johnny bucked and arched, struggling to free himself. Kel held on, absorbing his energy and wondering if this was what it felt like to ride a wild horse.

"Damn, Johnny," he gritted, clamping one hand on the back of his neck and jamming a knee between his legs in an effort to keep him still, "now I see why he had to handcuff you." He heard a sharp intake of breath just before Johnny went limp beneath him, and suspected that he had said the wrong thing. "Johnny? You okay?" Not willing to risk letting Johnny up just yet, Kel shifted his leg in slow, careful increments until he straddled Johnny. He sat back on his heels, keeping one hand firmly pressed to Johnny's lower back, not quite sure how to proceed. They were both breathing hard. Deep in thought, trying to sort out the puzzle of Johnny's erratic behavior, Kel almost missed the first few words when Johnny started to talk.

"I wanted him to. Cuff me, that is. I wanted to see what it felt like to have someone else...not me...I...I was stupid."

Kel pressed Johnny's shoulders to the couch while letting his thumbs rub soothing circles in his upper back. The younger man relaxed into the cushion expelling a sigh of what sounded like utter relief. "Tell me," said Kel.

Johnny stayed quiet for a minute or so before giving another heartfelt sigh. When he started talking, he didn't pretend to misunderstand Kel. "I like guys. Newsflash, right? There's this place I go sometimes. Mostly I just hang out and have a few beers. Once I actually got up the nerve to blow some guy in the parking lot. He wanted to take it further but I just made some dumb excuse and took off. Not exactly what you'd expect from the macho fireman, right?" He laughed bitterly into the cushion. "Last night I just needed... _more_."

A nearly uncontrollable urge to lick the back of Johnny's neck and down his spine shot through Kel. He gave a final pat to his arm and began to ease off of him. "Keep talking," he encouraged him. "I want to hear it all, but we need to get you patched up. Roll over. Just lie on your back and stay relaxed." He helped Johnny switch positions and swallowed against a suddenly tight throat at the clear-eyed, trusting gaze that met his. Maintaining contact with one hand on Johnny's leg, he reached for his bag and opened it, searching for what he would need as he spoke to Johnny, trying to draw out the rest of the story. "What's the name of this place?" He lifted Johnny's hands and examined his wrists, relieved to see that the gouges were mostly superficial and would not require stitches.

"It's a bar called _Vesuvius_ , maybe a half hour drive from here."

"Hm," was all Kel said. He had stopped in there once and swore he would never go back. When he looked up at Johnny's face again, his eyes had closed. He continued working while Johnny explained what had happened the night before.

 

@@@@@@@@@@

 

With his eyes shut, the words came more easily, and the story spilled out of him in all of its humiliating detail. Brackett's touch soothed him as he talked. Even the sharp sting of antiseptic on his wrists felt comfortingly familiar and he submitted to the doctor's care without fidgeting. As gauze pads whispered into place, tape enclosed his wrists, and slivers of glass were extracted with precise little tugs from the soles of his feet, Johnny relaxed and sketched out the events of the previous night. Brackett made occasional noises to show that he was listening, but otherwise allowed Johnny to talk without comment as he worked on him.

When he had finished his retelling, Johnny lay still, enjoying the sensation of Brackett's strong hands grasping his ankle as he placed the last bandage on his foot, feeling secure and grounded for the first time in months. That awful sense of isolation and disconnect which had haunted him since his aunt died receded at this simple human contact. Impersonal as Brackett's touch might be, he could pretend it was something more, and he kept his eyes closed, unwilling to break the spell.

Too soon, Brackett released him. Johnny could hear the doctor returning his instruments and supplies to his bag, followed by the sound of it being zipped shut. When he finally opened his eyes, he was disappointed to discover that Brackett had retreated to the armchair across from the couch. The coffee table, tilted from where Jack had kicked in one of the legs, stood between them. Johnny wondered absently if he could repair it. His gaze moved up to find Brackett regarding him with a thoughtful expression on his handsome features, and whatever words he intended to say caught in his throat.

After a moment, Brackett sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. "Johnny," he said, and then paused as if uncertain how to proceed.

Johnny pushed himself up onto his elbows and swung his legs over the side of the couch, wincing as his feet made contact with the floor. He rearranged himself a few times before settling for a seated, slouched position, his legs stretched out straight in front of him, crossed at the ankles, with his left, less injured heel taking most of the weight. A quick glance at Brackett showed that his gaze remained steadfastly on Johnny.

"So, Doc," he began, striving for levity, "I guess this is the part where you tell me I'm an idiot and I need to be more careful who I invite home with me."

Brackett gave a half smile and shrugged negligently. "I think your friend from last night drove that lesson home fairly well."

Johnny laughed without humor. Feeling his shoulder twinge, he raised his arms above his head and stretched, giving a little groan as his muscles protested the movement. "You can say that again. Pretty expensive lesson though. Asshole took my television and stereo. And I'd offer you a cup of coffee, but I'm pretty sure he took the coffeemaker, too, unless that was what I saw in pieces near the sink." He stared glumly at his toes. "Oh, by the way, thanks for getting me loose. I wasn't looking forward to one of the guys from the station finding me like that. Especially Roy. You're bad enough." Realizing how that must have sounded, he added, "No offense."

"None taken." A faint note of humor had crept into Brackett's voice.

Johnny frowned and crossed his arms. "Not that I'm complaining, but what brings you out here, anyway?"

Dr. Brackett averted his gaze at that question, and for the first time began to look uncomfortable. "Ah. Well. I thought we should clear the air about what happened yesterday."

"Yesterday?" Johnny knew exactly what he was referring to, but found a perverse satisfaction in feigning ignorance and watching the faint pink that colored Brackett's face. "What about yesterday?"

Brackett's eyes narrowed. "Don't play dumb. The exam room. I kissed you. Ringing a bell? I came over here to apologize."

"Apologize? Why? You think you could have done better job of it?"

"Johnny -- "

"No apology necessary, Doc. From where I was standing, it felt pretty comprehensive." He grinned, ignoring the quelling look on Brackett's face. "So, ah, Doc. Something you wanted to confess, maybe? Wait, don't tell me...you like guys?"

Brackett's grunt of laughter sounded reluctant, but at least the tension had left his face. "Yeah. Newsflash."

They smiled at one another, gazes locked together for longer than necessary, and all at once the atmosphere in the room seemed to thicken and heat. He watched as Brackett's eyes darkened and zeroed in on his mouth. A soft groan that might have been frustration rumbled deep in Kel's chest and he licked his lips before slumping backwards, head against the chair and eyes shut. Johnny watched in fascination as his Adam's apple jerked convulsively, as if he was trying to bring himself under control. In that instant Johnny knew for a certainty that he didn't want him under control. Mindful of his injured feet, he dropped to his knees, shoved the coffee table out of the way, half-crawled the short distance to the other man, and put his hands on his knees. Brackett's eyes flew open in surprise and Johnny felt the sudden tightness under his hands. Going on pure instinct, he shifted his grasp upwards and circled his thumbs over Brackett's inner thighs in a gentle massage.

"Johnny, I'm your boss," Brackett whispered harshly. He placed his hands over Johnny's, but made no effort to remove them.

The words sent a shiver of excitement through Johnny. _His boss_. A quick image flashed through his mind of Brackett finding him earlier, stretched out, cuffed and helpless. The aching hunger from the previous night, which Jack had temporarily thwarted, returned full force, fueled by the feel of Brackett's solid, muscular thighs under his hands, his clean scent spiced with a hint of some expensive cologne, and the memory of his touch on his wrists and ankles, which had been both anchoring and electric.

"Yeah, you're my boss. That just makes it better, Doc."

Brackett's breath caught and he gave a little cough. "We can't do this."

"Sure we can. Would it make you feel better if I called you Kel? Just here, right now, and tomorrow you'll be Dr. Brackett again."

"Johnny -- "

"No one has to know. I won't tell anyone. I promise." He read both arousal and hesitation on Brackett's - Kel's - face. "Please. I need this. You don't know....Some days it feels like I'm gonna go nuts." Abandoning both caution and pride, he trailed one hand up to brush against the outline of Kel's cock and he stifled a groan as he traced the thick, hard heat straining against the doctor's jeans. "See. You need this too. Come on. Help a guy out here," he coaxed breathlessly. "Please, Kel. Please fuck me. However you want. Whatever you like. I'll do anything you ask." He heard Kel's harsh, quick breaths. Growing bolder, he rose up further on his knees and grasped the back of Kel's neck, pulling him close. Kel resisted briefly, and then bent forward to meet him.

Their mouths came together in a slick, urgent swirl of tongues. Kel gripped Johnny's biceps hard, fingers digging into him almost painfully. He relaxed his hold on Kel's neck and softened his mouth, ceding control and making low, needy sounds in the back of his throat. All he wanted at that moment was to slide to the ground and pull Kel on top of him, to be held down and filled and possessed. He shifted restlessly, trying to telegraph his need, but a moist crunch underneath his knee reminded him of the state of his living room.

Reluctantly, he pulled his mouth away. "Upstairs," he muttered hotly against Kel's cheek. "Please." He offered up his mouth again and Kel kissed him hard, a little rough and a little dirty, and raw need flared through Johnny and if he didn't get Kel upstairs and into his bed in about five seconds he feared he might combust like a flashover and consume them both in a wild ball of flame.

Even as he considered how to extricate himself from the kiss and prod Kel up the stairs, he felt the doctor resisting, pulling back. "Okay, not upstairs," Johnny breathed. "Here's good. Perfectly good couch right over there."

Kel lurched to his feet and stumbled to the side, away from Johnny. "Wait, Johnny. Just wait a minute."

"No," he groaned, "no waiting. I've waited too long." Still on his knees, he followed Kel as he retreated, no longer caring about the glass and debris on the floor or how ridiculous he looked. He caught up with him when Kel ran out of room, backed against a wall. Desperate and trembling and lightheaded with need, Johnny reached for Kel's waistband and popped open the top button of his jeans. "Do you want me to suck you?" Without waiting for permission he tugged down the zipper and fumbled inside Kel's briefs for his cock, humming in satisfaction at the hot silky length he encountered. Two hands landed on his shoulders, clutching, and he spared a glance upwards at Kel's strained expression. Even as he started to smile in what he hoped was a seductive manner, the hands on his shoulders opened and shoved him hard, sending him sprawling onto his backside.

"Don't! We are not doing this." Scowling, Kel refastened his jeans. "I'd hoped we could get things settled between us, but I see now that you're not in the mood to behave reasonably."

Realizing he had pushed too far, Johnny remained seated on the floor, hunched and miserable. "Doc," he whispered, "I'm sorry. That was...I never should have...oh, shit. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." He looked down, unable to meet the other man's gaze. After a brief pause, he heard him sigh and retrieve his bag before walking to the front door.

"Johnny," came Brackett's weary voice from across the room, "let's just pretend none of this ever happened. I'm as much to blame for this as you are. I guess I'm sorry too." The door opened. "Try to stay safe. _Please_." Another sigh. "All right. I'll see you tomorrow."

The door closed softly and Johnny found himself sitting alone in the ruins of his living room, desolate, alone, aching with frustration, and feeling like the world's biggest fool. Replaying the last few minutes in his mind, he cringed at the things he had said and done. The thought of facing Brackett tomorrow made him want to howl or smash something to pieces, but as he looked around his house he nearly laughed out loud since it appeared that everything in the place had already been broken.

Finally, realizing he couldn't just sit there all day, he gave a grunt and stood up, doing a hopping little dance at the suddenly recalled painful cuts on his feet. He collapsed on the couch, not ready to tackle the daunting task of cleanup. _What a shitty couple of days_ , he reflected. From the confrontation with Rogers, to the twin fiascos of Jack and Dr. Brackett....Trying to find something positive to improve his mood, he consoled himself with the knowledge that at least Roy would be back at work tomorrow.

Until Roy had left for vacation, Johnny hadn't realized how much he had come to rely upon his partner's rock steady presence. His aunt had been his last living relative, and although he hadn't talked to her all that often anymore, her sudden, massive stroke and death had left him feeling more alone than he could have imagined, as if all of his ties to the world had vanished with her. At the time, he had still been feeling his way with Roy and the rest of A-shift, but just riding around in the squad with his partner had been enough to keep him sane.

With Roy's anchoring presence, he thought maybe he could even face Brackett tomorrow. _Maybe_. He winced. At least he hadn't gone so far as to confess his bondage fantasies to Brackett, or show him his favorite leather cuffs. It wasn't much, but at least he had that scrap of dignity still intact. With that faint consolation giving him a surge of energy, he heaved to his feet and went upstairs to find a pair of thick socks to wear while he put his home back in some semblance of order.


	3. Chapter 3

Johnny woke up gasping, his damp t-shirt clinging to his back and chest.  Jerking upright, he threw off his blanket, swung his legs to the side of his bunk and sat with his head cradled in his hands, struggling to slow his breathing and bring his pounding heart under control.  A furtive glance around the room assured him that he hadn't yelled in his sleep or thrashed loudly enough to wake any of his shift mates.  Standing on unsteady legs, he padded into the bathroom and splashed cool water on his face and then stared into the mirror, trying to remember the nightmare that had woken him.  There had been a room...something familiar....He'd been eleven or twelve in the dream, and had been terrified about something.  Johnny shut his eyes, reaching for the rapidly fading images that had startled him awake.

 _He stands in a bedroom in the third or maybe the fourth foster home he had landed in after his parents died.  His cheap cloth suitcase lies on the bed and someone - what is her name?  Margaret?  Mary? - folds his clothes and slaps them into the suitcase.  ‘You're someone else's problem now', she snarls.  ‘I hope they have better luck with you than we did.  I told Al he shoulda used his belt on you more often than he did.'  She zips up the suitcase and hands him his jacket.  ‘Put this on and go wait on the front porch.  Mrs. Dale is picking you up some time this morning.  I want you quiet as a mouse until she gets here.  And don't you dare go running off on me again.'_

 _He stares up at her for a moment and then gazes forlornly around the small room that has been his for the last six months, at the faded beige bedspread with the barely visible horses galloping in every direction, the peeling blue wallpaper, and the colorful rug woven from scraps of fabric that is perfect for sliding across the scuffed pine floor.  He wonders how long it will take for this room to fade, if it will remain in his memory any longer than the ones before it.  ‘Go on,' Margaret or Mary scolds.  She thrusts the suitcase into his arms.  ‘Take this with you.'  He trudges to the front door, suitcase clutched in his arms.  Before he steps out on the porch, he takes one last look back and watches Mary or Margaret disappear down the narrow hallway with his dirty sheets and bedspread heaped in her arms.  A moment later she returns with a bucket of steaming water, a mop and a bottle of cleaner.  She catches him looking and scowls.  ‘Go on, now, John.  I've got work to do.  Shoo!'  She enters the room and he pictures her in there, busily removing every trace of him from her home._

 _He sits on the porch and waits for the social worker to come and collect him.  It's a mild March day, but a capricious breeze swirls through the rose bushes in the yard and the chestnut trees that line the street.  Every so often the wind picks up, rattling the shutters and blowing straight through his thin jacket to raise goose bumps on his arms and chest.  He waits and waits for Mrs. Dale, becoming more and more anxious.  The wind pushes and pulls at him.  He feels himself growing transparent, light and insubstantial, and begins to fear that even with the suitcase weighing him down the wind will grow too strong for him.  Then, to his horror, the wind slams into him hard and lifts him straight up into the sky, blowing him higher and higher above the earth, further away from the house and his past and all of his memories, and he wants to scream but no sound comes out, and finally he becomes nothing more than a faint speck in the vast blue sky and finally blinks out of existence entirely._

Johnny stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror and gave a shaky laugh, wondering what had brought on that old dream.  There had been a few more foster homes after the one in the dream, and then his aunt had found him and offered him a permanent home.  His life had changed after that.  He'd had a place in the world, a person to whom he belonged to keep him tethered and safe.  _Not anymore,_ the uneasy voice of a child whispered inside of him.  Taking another deep, steadying breath, he sluiced more water over his face, dried himself with a paper towel, and headed back to the dorm.

Reassuring snores greeted him.  The clock showed 5:30.  He considered getting dressed and going to the kitchen to start the coffee, but the nightmare had dredged up his old fears and he needed the sense of security the familiar faces brought him.  Careful not to make any noise, he crept back to his bunk and lay on top of the blanket with his back propped against the wall.  He glanced over at Roy every so often, just because it soothed him to remind himself that his partner was back and wouldn't be leaving him alone anytime soon.

A week had passed since the disastrous episode with Jack and Dr. Brackett.  Since then, true to his word, the doctor had behaved as if nothing had passed between them.  Johnny had followed his lead, but his stomach still gave an uncomfortable lurch every time he saw him.  He supposed that would fade in time, leaving them with the same professional and sometimes contentious relationship they'd had before.  He found himself staring at Roy now, his face slack and calm in sleep, and wondered how Roy managed to get along with Dr. Brackett with little apparent effort, and Johnny could never seem to.  _Then again, I bet Brackett never tried to kiss Roy,_ he mused, and nearly laughed out loud at the thought of how Roy would react if such a thing ever happened.

He was mulling that over when the tones sounded, and the quiet room dissolved into sleepy groans and rapid, efficient movement as the men pulled on their turnout pants and boots and trotted to the equipment bay to respond to an early morning multiple vehicle accident.  Johnny shadowed Roy to the squad, pulled on his dark blue jacket, took his place in the passenger seat, strapped on his helmet and shot his partner a grin which was returned with a decidedly grumpy scowl.  He didn't care.  The last vestiges of the nightmare had vanished in the rush of action and adrenaline, and he reminded himself that he had a place in the world, and he had somehow lucked onto a partner who was beginning to feel as much like family to him as his own ever had.  Even though an MVA generally promised a difficult and quite possibly grisly drawn out call, Johnny couldn't suppress the contentment bubbling up inside of him as Roy maneuvered the squad onto the street.

At the scene, they discovered that a car had gone over the embankment, forced off the road by the drunk driver currently grappling with the state patrol officer who had arrived first.  Stoker and Marco hopped off the engine to go lend a hand to the trooper while Cap and Chet followed Johnny and Roy to the edge of the shoulder.  Perhaps two hundred yards below the highway, down a steep slope covered in loose gravel and tufts of grass, a mangled station wagon lay tilted on one side, leaning against a jagged boulder.  From the extent of the damage done to the car, it seemed unlikely that anyone had survived the accident.

Cap rapidly issued orders.  "Johnny, you put on a belt and head down there first to check on the victims.  Chet and Marco can handle the ropes.  Roy, I guess you'd better check on this yahoo."  He jerked a thumb in the direction of the struggling drunk.  "See if he has any injuries."

Chet snorted.  "Probably too soused to even feel it if he did, much less get hurt in the first place.  These morons always seem to luck out."

"We still have an obligation to make sure he's okay," Cap said.  "Marco!  Leave him and get over here."

Johnny kept a tight rein on his emotions as he ran to get the climbing gear.  He absolutely was not remembering another accident scene fifteen years earlier, or seeing the shattered bodies of his mother and father, or smelling the heavy scents of spilled fuel mingling with pooled blood.  He had fought and won that internal struggle several times over as a rescue man, and now refused to allow those painful memories to interfere with his complete concentration on the job that needed to be done.

Drawing in a deep, steadying breath, he buckled the wide leather belt around his waist and felt the same familiar sensation of calm and _rightness_ settle over him that he got whenever they had a rescue which involved climbing.  Chet and Marco tied off the rope, hooked him in and checked the security of the line.  As Johnny pulled on his gloves he spared a glance over at Roy to see how he was faring.  His partner had taken off his helmet and gotten the middle-aged drunk driver seated on the back of the squad while he took his vitals.  The man hollered something Johnny couldn't decipher, and he saw Roy wince and flinch away, probably from the fumes on the man's breath.  _Better you than me, pally,_ Johnny thought.  He doubled-checked the rope one more time to make sure it was feeding properly, then nodded at Chet and prepared to descend.

He had taken one step off the edge when a movement caught his eye and he looked back over at the squad.  The drunken man had popped to his feet, shoved Roy away, and taken off running.  Roy, Stoker, Cap and the trooper all converged on him from different directions, trying to corral him as he zigzagged first one direction and then another.  Glad and at the same time a little anxious that the chase was taking place without him, Johnny continued down the slope, his booted feet sliding every so often as he sought to gain purchase on the loose rocks.  Chet and Marco handled the rope in their usual expert manner, and in less than a minute Johnny had reached the station wagon.  A quick check inside revealed a single occupant, a young woman whose forehead had been caved in.  His heart sank as he cleared the remaining glass from a shattered window, preparing to check for a carotid pulse but not expecting to find one.

A hoarse shout drew his attention.  Far above him he could barely make out a brief struggle between two men, one of whom wore a dark blue jacket.  Arms windmilled wildly and then the fireman stepped backwards onto the slope, slid jerkily for a few feet, pivoted sideways, gave a cry of pain, lost his balance, fell onto his back and rolled the rest of the way down the hill.  Time seemed to stop as Johnny recognized Roy just before his partner hit the boulder with a sickening crunch and lay perfectly still, bright red blood flowing from a gash in his head and down one pale cheek.

Moving on autopilot, never taking his eyes off of Roy's still form, Johnny reached inside the window of the car and found, as he had known he would, no carotid on the driver's neck.  Then he crawled the several feet over to where Roy lay and performed the same check.  This time he was rewarded with the feel of a strong, steady pulse under his fingertips.  Struggling for a moment to find his balance in the shifting gravel, he squatted next to Roy and began a quick assessment.  His pupils were equal but reacted sluggishly to his penlight.  His turnout pants had protected his legs from superficial damage, but his jacket sleeves were torn.  Both elbows and hands were scraped raw, oozing blood, and one ankle was either fractured or badly sprained.  His ribs seemed unhurt.  Johnny looked up the slope and saw Chet or Marco just starting down towards him, guiding another line holding the stokes, which was loaded with equipment. 

Looking down, he saw that the injured paramedic had still not moved.  "Roy?  Roy, come on.  Don't do this," he pleaded and pinched the other man's earlobe.  "I need you to open your eyes, Roy."  His partner lay unmoving.  Johnny fought down rising panic as he performed a sternal rub with the same results.

"Johnny?"  Chet came to a stop next to him, slightly out of breath.  How had he gotten down the slope so fast?  And where had Marco come from?  He felt dizzy, disoriented, and took several deep breaths to gather his scattered thoughts.  _Later,_ he told himself.  _You can fall apart later, but not now, not until we get Roy to Rampart._   "Okay," he said crisply, "one victim in the car, Code F.  Set up the biophone, Chet.  Marco, hand me the cervical collar and a pressure bandage."

As he took vital signs, taped a bandage to Roy's forehead, relayed Roy's condition to Dr. Early and started an IV of Ringer's Lactate, he felt weirdly detached, as if he had floated upwards a few feet to watch himself work.  _Shit.  Get a grip, Gage.  This is Roy.  You gotta get this right._ He dug his fingernails into his palm and bit down hard on the inside of his cheek, hoping the pain would bring things back into focus.  It seemed to help.  He gave a brisk nod towards Chet and Marco, and they all moved in sync to transfer Roy to the backboard, and then into the stokes.  His chest grew tight as he watched the stokes being hauled up the slope.

"Johnny?  Johnny!"

He gave a start at Chet's yell, and realized that he had been staring, frozen in place, not hearing the static-filled calls coming over his HT, and that the rest of the crew waited at street level to assist his climb back up to join them.  He nodded and then raised the HT.  "Yeah.  Bring me up."  His legs seemed to have turned to over-cooked spaghetti noodles and he couldn't get them to move quickly enough.  Despite the chill morning air, sweat soaked his t-shirt and stung his eyes.  Scrambling the last few feet, he stepped wrong on a large chunk of rock.  He grimaced as his ankle gave way and he fell forward onto one knee.  Ignoring the dual sharp pains, he half-crawled the rest of the way and allowed Chet and Marco to pull him upright.  As his gaze searched for Roy, he noticed only peripherally that another engine had arrived at the scene to assist, along with an ambulance and a second state patrol cruiser.  He spotted Roy already strapped to a gurney and being loaded into the ambulance.  He took a step towards the ambulance but was brought up short by a hand on his shoulder.

"Hold up a second," said Chet.  "Let's get you unhooked and out of that belt."  He reached for the thick metal clip.  Without thinking, Johnny slapped his hand away and took a step backwards.  Chet followed him, an annoyed frown on his face.  "What's your problem, man?  Roy's waiting for you."

Johnny couldn't explain the gust of panic which had swept through him at the thought of being unhitched from the belt.  His nightmare from earlier that morning replayed in his mind in quick, disjointed bursts.  He felt weightless, lightheaded, and glanced up uneasily at the pale blue sky, half-expecting to see a tiny speck fading into nothing.  The odd sensation passed almost immediately.  He nodded at Chet, allowed himself to be unclipped and then unbuckled his belt, let it slide to the ground, and sprinted to the ambulance, allowing the shooting pain in his ankle to ground him.  He climbed in after his still unconscious partner, turning to take the biophone and drug box that someone passed up to him.  Sitting down, he eyed Roy worriedly and began retaking his vitals.  "You're going to be okay, Roy," he muttered, trying to sound as if he believed it.  "You just hang in there for me.  Don't go anywhere."  _Don't leave me alone._

 

@@@@@@@@@@

 

Following another night of tossing and turning and precious little sleep, Kel arrived at the hospital early and holed himself up in his office, intending to get caught up on his paperwork before starting his shift.  Instead, he ended up drinking coffee, staring unseeing at his closed door, and brooding over the situation with John Gage, wondering for the hundredth time how he might have handled it better.  He could hardly deny he was to blame for starting the whole thing by kissing Johnny in that insane moment of weakness.  Still, he couldn't regret driving out to his place the following morning.  Better that he had found him than somebody else twenty-four hours later.  Part of him wished he hadn't seen that box underneath the bed; it had put all sorts of thoughts in his head which most definitely did not need to be there.  More than anything, he wished he had reacted to Johnny's advances with more self-control and tact.  He couldn't erase that last image of Johnny sitting in his wrecked house, head down, hurt and humiliation written clearly on his expressive face and in every inch of his defeated posture.  The younger man had been practically vibrating with need, had pursued Kel on his knees and _begged_ for it. 

 _I led him on and then tossed his need right back in his face.  Shit.  The least I could have done was to stay and help him clean up his damn house._

Kel tapped his pen on the desk a few times and then reached for his mug, surprised to find it empty.  A glance at his watch showed that he had been deep in thought for longer than he had realized and his shift was about to start.  He sighed, picking up his mug and heading for the break room.  Might as well swig a little more caffeine and see what disasters the day had in store.  He consoled himself with the thought that at least Johnny was not on shift today.  He had barely completed that thought when he entered the break room and froze, his eyebrows raising at the sight of Dixie speaking quietly and seriously with the very paramedic in question.  Johnny had his back pressed against the wall, while Dixie's hands rested on his shoulders.  e H

He did not appear to be struggling or trying to break free, but his tense posture and the wild look in his eyes made his agitation obvious.

While continuing to speak softly, Dixie flicked a glance at Kel, clearly asking for his help.  When he nodded once, she pitched her voice louder.  "Johnny?  Roy is going to be fine.  Nobody's keeping anything from you.  Look.  Dr. Brackett is here.  I'm sure he would be more than happy to go check on him for us."

Johnny's wide-eyed gaze tracked from Dixie to Kel.  He stared at Kel in mute appeal.

Kel frowned.  "Roy was hurt?  What happened?"  Johnny didn't answer, so he looked to Dixie.

She sighed and turned, keeping one hand on Johnny.  "He took a bit of a tumble at a rescue this morning.  Scraped his hands up pretty good, twisted his ankle, and whacked his head.  As Joe has already told Johnny, Roy suffered a mild concussion.  Nothing more serious than that."

"Why doesn't he wake up, then?" Johnny whispered.

Kel set his mug in the sink and gave Johnny what he hoped was a reassuring smile.  "Why don't I go talk to Dr. Early?  You stay here with Dix, okay?"  Johnny nodded jerkily.  "Dix...?"

"Treatment two."

"Be right back."

Worried himself for the senior paramedic, Kel hurried down the hall and pushed open the door to treatment two to find Roy groaning and trying to sit up.

"Whoa, Roy," said Joe Early.  "Lie still or your head is only going to hurt that much more."  He looked up and acknowledged Kel with a nod.  "Hey, Kel.  You're here early.  And you look like hell."

He rolled his eyes.  "Thanks.  And good morning to you, too.  How's our patient?"  He pulled up a stool and sat next to the exam table.  "Hello, Roy.  I hear you took a spill this morning.  How are you feeling?"

"Like I fell down a hill and cracked my head on a rock."  He lay back and squeezed his eyes shut.

"Ouch," said Kel, wincing in sympathy.  "Joe?"

Joe crossed his arms.  "Mild concussion.  A few abrasions.  I'm going to wrap his ankle and get him admitted."

Roy gave another heartfelt groan.  "Doc?  Is that necessary?"

"You know it is, Roy," said Joe.  "You were out for over an hour.  We need to keep an eye on you.  But if everything looks good, you can get out of here first thing tomorrow morning."

"Fine," he grumped.  "Has my wife been called?"

Kel stood, patting Roy gently on the shoulder.  "I'll ask Dixie to give her a call.  And now that my work here is done...."

Joe gave a derisive snort.

"As I said, now that my work here is done, I need to go reassure your partner that you're going to live."

"Johnny's still here?"

"Just down the hall and worrying himself into a fit.  Can I send him in?"

"Naw, Doc.  Tell him to go on home and enjoy his days off and I'll see him...."  He looked hopefully up at Joe.  "Next shift?"

Joe shook his head.  "I don't think so, Roy.  You should sit one out.  If you're feeling up to it after that, you should be okay.  If you have any lingering headaches or dizziness, though, I want to know about it.  All right?"

"Sure, Doc.  See you later Dr. Brackett."

Kel gave him a wave as he exited the room, and caught sight of Dixie walking towards him on her way back to the nurses' station.  "Dix?  Did you manage to get him calmed down?"

She shrugged.  "I hope so.  Poor kid seemed pretty shook up.  He got called back to the station, though.  I guess the next shift wanted their squad back."

Kel frowned, a tiny whisper of worry teasing at his mind.  "He was okay to drive?"

"Sure, Kel.  Johnny's a big boy.  Anyway, he said he was just going to get changed and head back here.  I told him Roy should be set up in a room by then."

"All right.  It's just...he's seemed on edge lately.  I just hope..."  He wanted to say more, but saw the shrewd look she was giving him, and decided he had better change the subject.  "Say, Dix, would you mind giving Roy's wife a call?  He was asking about her."

"Of course."  She fixed him with a level, blue gaze, gave him a knowing smirk, and left him standing in the hallway, feeling oddly exposed, as if he had just confessed something to her of which he wasn't even aware.

 

Almost an hour later, Kel took the elevator up to the third floor to check on Roy.  Joe had left for the day, and Kel wanted to assure himself that Roy was okay.  As he neared room 321, he heard voices drifting into the hallway.  Expecting to find Johnny visiting with Roy, he halted in the doorway and almost backed out again when he saw Roy's wife, JoAnne, sitting on the edge of the bed, holding his hand and stroking the back of her other hand down the side of his face in a tender and intimate gesture.  Instead, he cleared his throat and hid a smile at the way she jumped up and away from the bed, blushing a deep red.

"Hi, JoAnne.  Roy.  Sorry for interrupting."  He grabbed the chart from the foot of the bed.  "I'll be out of your hair in just minute."  Satisfied with what he saw, he replaced the chart.  "Still feeling okay, Roy?"

"Sure, Doc, if by okay you mean do I have a splitting headache, a throbbing ankle, and the recurring urge to puke my guts out, then yes, I feel great."

"I'll prescribe something for your nausea.  And if your condition remains stable, maybe we can get you a little relief from the pain later this afternoon."

"That would be great, Doc."

"I'll leave you two alone then.  Don't wear him out too much, JoAnne."

Roy and JoAnne both blushed this time and Kel had to fight not to roll his eyes as he left the room. 

He had a few other patients to see on this floor.  Twenty minutes later, he was standing at the nurses' station when he spotted Johnny down the hall, dressed in jeans and a maroon shirt, headed toward room 321, appearing decidedly more relaxed than he had been in the break room.  The bounce was back in his step, and Kel couldn't help watching him as he approached Roy's door.

Memories from a week ago tumbled through his mind:  Johnny cuffed naked to the bed with his slender back curved into a sweet arch, Johnny pursuing him on his knees, Johnny pleading with him and touching Kel with heated, trembling hands, and Johnny sprawled in humiliated disappointment on the floor.  He wondered if Johnny had found what he needed with somebody else, and was surprised by how _wrong_ that felt.  His gaze followed Johnny and he grew warm, his breathing and pulse speeding up as he imagined... _things you shouldn't be thinking about in the third floor hallway of Rampart.  Idiot._ He sighed, just barely managing to stifle a low groan, and still he couldn't tear his gaze away.  

 _Damn it.  He has no right to look so good in a pair of Levis._

Johnny reached the open doorway and froze.  Kel couldn't see his face, but his body language spoke clearly of surprise and sudden tension.  The couple inside the room must have spotted him because he raised his hand and gave a stilted little wave, nodded a few times, and started backing up, jerking his thumb over his shoulder as if to say, _I'll just be going now._   When he spun too quickly on his heel and made for the elevator, Kel caught a glimpse of his flaming face and too bright eyes, just before a stiff, stoic mask slammed into place.

 _What was that all about?_  

Kel tossed the chart he had been holding onto the counter, ignoring the annoyed tongue-click from the charge nurse, and hurried down the hall at something just less than a run.  Still, he was too slow to catch Johnny.  The elevator opened and swallowed him up, and the last Kel saw of him as the doors slid shut was his rigidly straight spine.

 

@@@@@@@@@@

 

Johnny limped into his house, dropped heavily onto the couch and set the Styrofoam cup on his coffee table, snatching it up at the last moment as he remembered the pronounced tilt of the table which he had not yet repaired.  He gulped down hot, black coffee, ignoring the burn on his tongue and the roof of his mouth, and then tried again, satisfied when the lower side of the tilted cup barely contained the hot liquid.

He didn't want to think about Roy tumbling downhill, or about crunching skulls, or dark-haired young women with crumpled heads and thick, sticky streams of blood covering their faces and necks.  He tried to think of something else, anything else, gazing around the room for a distraction.  It didn't look so bad anymore, if emptier than it had been a couple of days ago.  He had cleared the debris left by Jack's rampage, washed away the worst of the food stains, and inventoried his losses.  His dishes and glassware had been a total loss, but they had been mostly crap anyway, a motley assortment picked up at secondhand stores and garage sales.  _Might as well take this opportunity to buy a complete set of something decent,_ he decided.

As he sat sipping his coffee, he composed a shopping list in his mind.  He needed a new stereo, television, coffeemaker, lamp....He gave the coffee table an ill-tempered kick and noted the wobbly legs.  Yep, he would probably need a new one of those as well.  The thought of how much it all would cost had him wincing and feeling a little ill.  Standing up had him wincing even more at the pain in his ankle.  He had been so worried about Roy that he hadn't thought to have anyone take a look at his own injuries.

 _Roy_.

He paused in the act of carrying his empty coffee cup into the kitchen.  Now that his mind had gone there, he couldn't hold back the memory of walking into Roy's room and finding JoAnne nestled up next to him, smoothing her hand over his brow.  He liked JoAnne all right, although he suspected she didn't think much of him.  It's just that it had struck him so clearly, seeing them together like that, that _there_ was the family:  Roy and JoAnne and their kids.  For all that he might like to pretend, Johnny knew at that moment that he was not part of that circle.  They had greeted him warmly enough, invited him in for a visit, but instinct had told him to flee, to not intrude.

 _Doesn't matter,_ he told himself.  _Just don't think about it._

As he went about his day, however - grabbing breakfast standing up, taking a quick shower, changing into a pair of cut-offs and his paint-spattered t-shirt, adding a first coat of paint over the primer in the living room - he couldn't help but think about Roy, and his aunt, and his parents, and how if he couldn't find one person, _just one damn person to belong to,_ he would end up like the boy in his nightmare, fading into nothing and floating away, or going through life transparent as a ghost.  The thought almost scared him more than getting injured in a fire or running into someone like Jack again.

He worked straight through the day, skipping lunch, and by dinnertime he was exhausted.  As he slumped on the couch and ate leftover cold pizza, he considered the night stretching ahead of him.  Weary as he was, he still felt too wired to sleep.  He couldn't lose himself in mindless entertainment since his television was gone and reading didn't appeal to him at the moment.  Although he had not consciously made the decision, he now realized precisely what he planned to do tonight, what he had intended all along at some level.  His body began to hum with anxiety and anticipation.  He avoided thinking too closely about the possible consequences of a return trip to _Vesuvius_ , telling himself he would not repeat his mistakes from last week.

After finishing his dinner, he went upstairs, brushed his teeth, stripped off his clothes, stepped into the shower and scrubbed himself clean.  Once he had dried himself, he dressed in his favorite jeans, the faded ones that were just a little too tight, chose a black shirt that buttoned close to his body, tucked it in and rolled up the sleeves past his elbows before adding a black leather belt with a thick silver buckle.  Sitting on the bed, he pulled on a pair of black cowboy boots, then moved to stand in front of the mirror on the back of his bedroom door and eyed himself critically, working his fingers through his damp hair for a minute or so, trying to tame the unruly black mop. 

When there was nothing more to do, he stood chewing his lower lip in an agony of indecision, feeling the nervous energy building in his stomach.  Lifting first one wrist and then the other, he traced the almost healed gouges Jack's handcuffs had left, the sight of them and the feel of the raised ridges sending a full-body shiver through him and filling him with a heated excitement that had him half-hard and ashamed of his reaction.  He wondered if the wounds would leave scars, permanent reminders of both his stupidity and this unfathomable need which remained as strong as ever despite the disastrous outcome of last week's adventure.

 _It won't happen that way this time,_ he told himself.  He had learned his lesson with Jack, and really, it could have ended so much worse than it had.  This time he would get it right.  And if all he found was a warm body for the night, or an hour, or a few minutes, maybe that would be enough to get him through this night.  That would have to suffice, because that was the most he could expect.  He would worry about all the other days and nights later.  He blew out a shaky breath, wishing his heart wouldn't thud so loudly.

 _It's now or never, Gage._

"Never" wasn't an option, so he grabbed his black leather jacket and headed for the door.


	4. Chapter 4

Kel took two absent sips of the excellent scotch before he set the glass on the ceramic coaster just hard enough to set the ice cubes clinking.  He stared at the amber liquid for perhaps five full minutes, watching condensation bead and roll down the sides of the expensive crystal.

He had driven straight home after his shift ended, loosened his tie as he breezed through the front door, tossed his keys up on the mantel over the fireplace, folded his suit coat over the back of a chair, and rolled up the sleeves of his blue striped button-down shirt on his way to the liquor cabinet.  A stiff drink had seemed like an excellent idea, and several stiff drinks had sounded even better.  After he dropped wearily onto the couch and had taken those first two sips, barely tasting the scotch or feeling the heat it spread down his throat and through his insides, something stopped him.  So he stared and brooded and delayed the inevitable.

Finally, "Fuck it," he muttered, pushed up off of the couch, grabbed his keys and coat and headed out the door.  If Gage wanted to get laid so badly, why shouldn't Kel be the one to oblige him?

Johnny's house was dark and his Land Rover was missing when Kel jolted down the gravel driveway, wondering if the Porsche's suspension would ever be the same.  As he watched light mist speckle his windshield, he considered his next move.  He had a strong suspicion of where Johnny might have gone, but would he really be so reckless as to return to _Vesuvius_ after his experience last week?  It took all of about two seconds for Kel to decide that, yes, being John Gage, he probably would.

Questioning his own sanity while at the same time cursing Johnny for a fool, he executed a squealing u-turn and headed back down the driveway at a bone-rattling speed, accelerating further as he hit the main road and turned north.  As he raced towards the bar that he knew to be a magnet for a rough crowd, his jaw began to ache from the strain of clenching it for so long.  Anger at Johnny alternated with unreasoning fury at the thought of someone else claiming what he had suddenly, irrationally come to think of as _his._   He hoped he would arrive to find Johnny sitting alone and that he could drag him out of there and...and what, exactly?

He pictured those intriguing leather cuffs he had seen under Johnny's bed, and wondered what it would feel like to be the one to fasten them on Johnny's wrists, stretch his arms over his head and thread the metal chain through the headboard.  That sort of play had never interested him in the past, but Johnny clearly craved it, and Kel's imagination had been fired by that one glimpse of Johnny helpless and straining on the bed.  He laughed without humor.  Maybe it would teach the irresponsible young man a lesson if he were to drag him home and indulge both of their fantasies.

 _To hell with boring, responsible Dr. Brackett.  If that's what he wants, I'll damn well give it to him._

Kel's foot pressed harder on the accelerator, anxious to reach _Vesuvius_ before someone else took what he had decided to claim as his own.

 

@@@@@@@@@@

 

Johnny had been sitting alone for nearly an hour, still nursing his first beer, when the two men approached him.  Ever since he had arrived, the jukebox selections had veered from country to pop to R&B to hard rock, as if several factions dueled for musical domination.  The sudden shifts were giving Johnny a headache.  Rod Stewart and Patsy Cline gave way to Marvin Gaye and Neil Diamond and Perry Como.  He shredded his coaster into smaller and smaller pieces as Al Green sang about how he was tired of being alone, and tapped his fingers agitatedly and stared at the scarred surface of the bar while Hank Locklin twanged out his plea for someone to "please help me, I'm falling."  The only thing the diverse songs seemed to have in common was their ability to send him deeper and deeper into a pit of melancholy.  When the opening acoustic strains of a Led Zeppelin song began, his chest tightened at the familiar lyrics.

 _‘Made up my mind to make a new start.  Going to California with an aching in my heart.'_

Too close to the truth, he decided, thinking he should probably give up the night as a loss and go home.  Just then, his peripheral vision caught a length of tanned, muscled arm and leather-clad thigh.  A heavy, broad-fingered hand landed on his shoulder and spun him halfway around to face the man who had wedged himself next to Johnny's stool.

 _‘Wondered how tomorrow could ever follow today.'_

"Hi," Johnny said stupidly, gazing up at a tall, dark-haired man with a bushy handlebar moustache, a strong chin and dark eyes which might have been hazel, or brown, or midnight blue.  He gave Johnny a toothy, predatory grin, his gaze roaming freely and, Johnny hoped, approvingly over him.  _Over his prey._

 _‘...I think I might be sinking...'_

Johnny shivered, taking in the mouthwatering sight of abundant muscles accentuated by tight leather pants and sleeveless black t-shirt.  The man radiated strength and raw sexuality.  Johnny shivered again, and knew his eyes had gone wide and a little glazed.

"Well, aren't you something?" Handlebar said, stroking his hand down Johnny's arm and stopping to circle his wrist.  He sat on the stool next to Johnny, his spread legs bracketing Johnny's knees, and trailed one finger back and forth along the inside of Johnny's thigh.  "Isn't he a sight, Pete?"

Caught up in what Handlebar's hands were doing, Johnny hadn't noticed the man standing behind himi.  He glanced up now and felt his mouth drop open a little.  Even in the dim light of the bar, Johnny could see that Pete's hair was lighter, almost blond, his eyes pale and every bit as predatory as Handlebar's.  Pete wore jeans and a worn grey t-shirt.  He was leaner than his companion, but just as tall - an inch or two taller than Johnny - and every bit as muscular, not to mention as handsome as a movie star.  _Jackpot,_ was all Johnny could think as Pete moved to stand next to Handlebar, hemming Johnny in...not that he was complaining.

"He sure is," said Pete, in response to the other man's question.  "You picked a good one this time, Bull."

 _Bull?_   Johnny's mouth grew suddenly dry, and he gave an involuntary glance at Bull's crotch.  Swallowing became a problem and he fumbled for his beer, only to have Pete reach around him, snatch it up and hand it helpfully to him.

"What's your name, puppy?"

Johnny nearly choked on his beer.   _Puppy?_ That was a new one.  He supposed it beat "boy," or "kid."  Possibly.  He had a sudden image of himself collared and leashed and commanded to sit up and beg.  Not sure how he felt about that, but intrigued nonetheless, he gave a startled jump when Bull grabbed his leg a little too hard.

"You do have a name don't you?" he asked, the corners of his eyes crinkling in amusement.

"Sure.  Sure.  It's uh, Johnny.  Or Fido.  Spot.  Whatever floats your boat.  Uh...Woof?"  He laughed nervously and took another gulp of beer.

Bull shot a pleased look up at Pete.  "Puppy's got a sense of humor.  I like that."

"Oh, I dunno."  Pete leaned in and bit Johnny lightly, just below his ear, causing him to shudder, jerk backwards and gasp all at once.  "I think it talks too much.  But I got a cure for that."  He leered at Johnny and rubbed himself suggestively.  "Now, I'm no Bull -- " he laughed and gave Bull's shoulder a poke.  "But I got plenty here to plug up that pretty mouth of yours."

"What do you say?"  Bull leaned closer and captured Johnny's neck with his hand.  "Want to go outside and learn a few new tricks?"

"Uh..."  Johnny did want that, more than he wanted to admit even to himself.  Something held him back, though, not just the memory of Jack, but the aura of danger that seemed to surround the two men.  That same danger was also a lure, and he found himself melting beneath all of the attention, leaning into Bull's touch and nodding his head.  "Sure.  Why not?"

"Well, all right."  Bull gave a feral grin, grabbing his wrist and pulling him up off the barstool.  As he led him to the door, Johnny felt Pete right behind him, one hand on his back, herding him along.

His stomach was somersaulting with fear and excitement.  _Just give yourself up to it,_ he lectured himself, shaking a little as Bull and Pete took him around behind the bar into the darkest corner of the parking lot.  He balked a little, digging in his heels when he saw the rusty VW van, but then Pete was kissing and licking the back of his neck and rubbing circles on his stomach.  Johnny had just enough time to wonder how his shirt had come untucked before Bull had the back of the van open.

"Hop in," said Bull.  "We've got a nice comfy bed inside.  Me and Pete are gonna give you a night you'll never forget.  Pete here is gonna teach you all the tricks you can do with that mouth of yours, and I'm gonna ride you so hard, until you squeal like the bad little puppy you are."

They had him surrounded, staring at him, waiting for him to crawl into the van in front of them, acting as if he had a choice.  Johnny knew that either one of them could probably use one hand to grab him by the scruff of his neck and toss him in, but they seemed to want him to acquiesce.  _Part of the game,_ he decided.  He glanced around the parking lot.  The place wasn't exactly deserted.  Men moved between the parked cars, singly and in pairs, and cars came and went.  If things got out of hand with the two men, he could probably yell loud enough to attract attention.

Maybe.

Just then, a car pulled into the lot, its headlights casting a momentary spotlight on their little tableau.  Feeling less isolated and a somewhat reassured, Johnny finally smiled brightly at first one and then the other of the two men, and hoisted himself up into the van and onto the thin mattress which smelled of mildew and sweat and old sex.  He barely had time to roll onto his back and scoot all the way in before they were on him, pinning him down, pawing at him, kissing and licking and biting and pulling at his clothes in their haste to get him naked.

"Whoa, guys," he laughed, "we've got plenty of time.  Go easy."

"Shut up," growled Bull, unbuckling Johnny's belt and tugging it free of the loops.

They manhandled him onto his stomach.  Bull straddled him and pulled his arms back, wrapping the belt around and around his wrists.

"Oh.  Okay.  That's..."  Good?  Bad?  Johnny wasn't sure.  He only knew that he was scared out of his mind and unbelievably turned on at the same time.

"Let's get the hell out of here," Bull grunted, cinching the belt tight.  "Too many witnesses."

"Yep.  You got it, man," came a new voice from the front of the van, followed by the sound of a key turning in the ignition and the engine trying to turn over.

Johnny jerked his head up, his mouth falling open as he stared in disbelief at the two other men he hadn't noticed before, seated in the driver and passenger seats.  The driver had his head down, concentrating on getting the engine to start, but the man in the passenger seat turned and grinned at Johnny.  "Hope you ate your Wheaties this morning," he drawled.  "It's going to be a long night."

He felt his jeans slide past his hips.  "Shit," said Johnny.  " _Oh, shit_."

 

@@@@@@@@@@

 

Kel pulled into the parking lot, driving slowly as he searched for Johnny's white Land Rover.  It was Friday night and the lot was nearly full.  He spotted the Rover and headed to the back of the lot where he had seen some empty spaces.  His headlights swept over a trio of men standing next to a van.  Pulling level with them, he hit the brakes and his stomach made a sick lurch as he realized that one of them was Johnny.  Moments later, all three men disappeared inside of the van, joining the two others Kel had seen in the front seat. 

One second stretched into the next as Kel debated whether to simply turn the car around and go home.  Then he heard the van's engine whine and stutter, almost but not quite turning over.  After a slight pause the sounds repeated, nearly obscuring a shouted protest from inside the vehicle.  Something grim and cold gripped him as he recognized Johnny's voice.  He thought rapidly, trying to formulate a plan that wouldn't include getting into a brawl with four other men.  Dulls thuds and more yelling sounded from inside the van.  Alarmed, Kel sprang from the Porsche, just as the back doors of the van flew open and a tangle of bodies spilled out onto the asphalt lot.  He caught a glimpse of a wildly squirming Johnny at the bottom of the pile.  He appeared to be in some difficulty, his movements hampered by something Kel couldn't quite make out in the shifting shadows.  At that moment, the van's engine spluttered once more, and this time it turned over, revving strongly.  Someone leapt out of the passenger side of the van and ran to join the struggle on the ground.

"Ah, crap," muttered Kel.  Without stopping to dwell on what he was doing, he reached back inside the Porsche and laid his hand on the horn, letting it blare several times, long and loud, until one by one Johnny's assailants picked themselves up and backed up a step or two to peer warily in Kel's direction, hands shielding their eyes from the glare of the headlights.

The largest of the three, a dark-haired, impressive hulk of a man sporting a handlebar mustache, took one step in Kel's direction.  "You got a problem, man?" he asked.

Imbuing his voice with all the authority he possessed, Kel growled back, "You bet I do."

He inclined his head at the ground, where Johnny was struggling to sit up.  A surge of anger flowed through him when he noted Johnny's jeans and underwear pulled halfway down his thighs, his long, decidedly uninterested penis flopping as he jerked and squirmed, and his arms secured tightly behind his back with what looked like a thick length of leather.  At this evidence of what he had interrupted, Kel's voice took on a harsher quality which sounded dangerous even to him.  "You've got something that belongs to me.  I'm here to take him back."  He kept a careful eye on the three men, and was only peripherally aware that Johnny had grown suddenly still.

A blonde man moved towards him.  "Now why would we let you do that?  Johnny here agreed to come with us, and we were only getting started.  You need to get back in that fancy car of yours and just run along before you get hurt."  He placed a hand possessively on top of Johnny's head, grasping his hair lightly while fixing Kel with a challenging stare.

A slamming car door had all their heads turning toward the driver's side of the van.  Kel's stomach dropped as he saw the driver hopping to the ground and hefting a baseball bat in his hands.  Kel eyeballed the distance between himself and Johnny, and between Johnny and the Porsche, and calculated the odds of lunging forward to grab Johnny and toss him in the car.  Before he could act, however, Johnny suddenly spoke up.

"It's okay, Doc," said Johnny, his voice quavering a little.  "I wanted this.  I asked for it.  You don't need to get involved.  Go ahead and take off."

Kel felt a growl forming in the back of this throat as the blonde man grabbed Johnny's arm and jerked him to his feet and then wrapped his arms around Johnny and smirked at Kel over the top of his head.

"You heard him, _Doc._   Johnny wants to party with us tonight."  He started to drag Johnny back towards the van, but stopped when the dark-haired man with the handlebar mustache held up a hand.

"Hold on, Pete.  Did he just call him Doc?  You're a doctor?"

Kel gazed at him stonily, his mind racing.

The dark-haired man smiled.  "You got any drugs in that fancy car of yours?"

A desperate plan flashed through Kel's mind, and he let a slow answering smile spread across his face.  "I sure do.  But I doubt you have any use for an extra-heavy dose of penicillin.  That is, unless you've had much close contact with my patient already...?"  He let the implication hang in the air, counting on the fact that none of the men in front of him had more than a layman's medical knowledge.

The smile on the dark-haired man's face slipped a little.  "What do you mean?"

"I mean," said Kel, figuring he would just go for broke with his ridiculous fabrication, "that the man with which you're so eager to share bodily fluids slipped out of quarantine at the hospital earlier this evening."

"Quarantine?"  The blonde man released Johnny and took one step back, and then another.

"Quarantine," affirmed Kel, warming to his lie.  "The public health department has traced a strain of extra-virulent, pernicious venereal disease to this young man.  That, coupled with his, er, incorrigible sexual addiction has resulted in a significant threat to the public.  I warned the day shift to keep a close watch on him because, frankly, some of the symptoms are extremely disturbing."

By the end of his speech, all four men had moved away from Johnny, leaving him swaying uncertainly and giving Kel a narrow-eyed glare.

"Symptoms?" asked the driver with a weak laugh, his baseball bat now hanging limply at his side.

"I assure you it's no laughing matter."  Kel signaled urgently to Johnny, and was relieved when he moved towards him as rapidly as he was able with his jeans still bunched around his thighs.  "We're talking about impotence - long-term impotence - painful rashes, hair loss, just to name some of the known symptoms."  He grabbed Johnny's arms and leaned him against his shoulder while he pulled up his jeans and fastened them.  Not bothering to free his hands, he yanked open the passenger door and shoved him into the seat as the four men huddled together, conferring quietly.  Kel sprinted around to the driver's side just as they appeared to notice him again.

"Hey," said the dark-haired man, "maybe we need some of that medicine you got.  Hey!  Wait up, Doc!"

Kel threw the car in reverse and accelerated away from the van and the four men before shifting into first, cranking the wheel and racing past a growing crowd of onlookers who had apparently been drawn outside by the raised voices.

He concentrated on his driving for a few minutes, then glanced over at Johnny, who was shifting restlessly, obviously in some discomfort from the bonds still holding his arms tightly behind his back.  Seeming to notice Kel looking at him, he paused and glared back.

" _Pernicious venereal disease?_ " he spat out.  "What the hell, Doc?  That's not even real!  You realize I can never go back there, right?"

"You're welcome," Kel snapped back.  "Why is it that all I seem to do these days is come to your rescue?"

"Nobody asked you -- " Johnny began, only to be cut off by Kel.

"You unbelievable _idiot!_   You get into a van with four complete strangers -- "

"I thought there were only two of them."

"Oh.  Oh, is that right?  So two complete strangers are okay?  Is that what you're telling me?"

Johnny sighed deeply, letting the sound trail off into a groan.  "No.  I don't know!  What do you care, anyway?"  He paused, and then continued more quietly.  "What did you mean by that, Doc?"

"What did I mean by what?"  Kel gave him an annoyed glance before staring back at the road.

"You said...."  He swallowed and then continued, almost whispering.  "You said I belonged to you."

Kel let that hang there between them for a minute.  Finally, still angry and not wanting to admit the truth, he shrugged dismissively.  "I would have told them you were an escaped serial killer if it would have gotten you away from them."

After that, Johnny seemed to decide that keeping his mouth shut was his safest bet for a while.  Kel drove on, determined to get his temper under control before he got Johnny home.  If he couldn't, he wasn't sure what he might do.

 

@@@@@@@@@@

 

Johnny eyed Kel warily, shifting uncomfortably and trying to ease the strain on his shoulders.  He thought about asking Kel to release him from his bonds, but one look at the other man's furious expression had him setting his own jaw and preparing to stoically wait him out.  The rational part of his brain knew he should be thanking Kel for once again rescuing him when he got in too deep, but humiliation at getting caught with his pants down - literally - combined with hurt pride over Kel's definitive rejection last week had his hackles raised.  All he wanted to do was to slink off home and crawl under the covers until his next shift.

One slight problem:  the Land Rover was still back at _Vesuvius._

He shot another look at Kel.  "We need to go back," he blurted out.

Kel gave him an incredulous look and shook his head.  "Absolutely not."

"I need my car."  He winced as Kel hit the brakes a little too hard at a stoplight, throwing Johnny forward.  With no way to brace himself, he banged his shoulder on the dashboard.  "Fuck," he muttered, righting himself and leaning back again. 

"We'll get it tomorrow."

"Doc..."

The look Kel gave him could have grown icicles in the Sahara.  "I said we'll get it tomorrow." 

"But -- "

"Not another word, Johnny.  If you have any sense of self-preservation, which I sincerely doubt, you'll sit there and keep quiet until I get you home."

"And when you get me home?" asked Johnny, filled with a familiar obstinate need to challenge Kel and push him further.  "What then?"

Kel's only response was a further lowering of his dark brows, a tighter clenching of his jaw, and a noticeable acceleration as he sped down the freeway.  Johnny subsided into resentful silence, but as he moved restlessly in the low seat, trying to find a comfortable position, the leather belt rubbed at his wrists and he found himself relaxing into the restraints, ignoring the ache in his shoulders.  His eyes drifted shut, his breathing slowed, and he let the night rush by outside the car, lulled by the motion and vibration and his current lack of control.

The next thing he knew, the car had slowed and made the turn down his driveway, bouncing over the gravel and potholes before coming to a stop near the front porch.  He opened his eyes and waited for Kel to say or do something, to free his wrists or come around to open his door and let him out of the car.  For several minutes, however, they sat together, neither saying a word.  He listened to Kel breathe in and out, deep and even, as if deliberately trying to calm himself.  Finally, Kel sighed heavily, shut off the engine, pocketed the keys and exited the car, slamming the door a little more firmly than necessary.  Johnny chanced a look in his direction.  The older man still looked pissed, but seemed to have reined in his anger somewhat.

What, Johnny wondered, would it take to break through his control?   And did he really want to?

His door opened and he maneuvered himself sideways in his seat, prying first one long leg and then the other out the door.  Standing proved to be a challenge.  Given a little more time he could have managed it, but Kel gave an annoyed hiss and grabbed his arm, hauling him to his feet.  "Inside," he growled, towing Johnny along towards the front door.

Johnny bit back his objections, concentrating instead on navigating the porch steps without tripping, and not slamming into the doorjamb as Kel stormed inside, not pausing until they reached the couch.  "Sit," ordered Kel.

Johnny obeyed without thought, sinking onto the couch with a speed that surprised both of them.  All at once he couldn't seem to draw enough air into his lungs.  He tested the bindings on his wrists, gazing up at Kel, seeing his expression change from annoyed to assessing to something dark and calculating in the space of a few seconds.  He reached for Johnny's face, thick, blunt fingers grasping his chin, angling it up as he bent a little to look Johnny in the eye.  Johnny made a noise that started out as a sigh and ended with an embarrassing little whimper.  He couldn't stop the shiver which rippled through him, and which he knew Kel could feel.

"Is this what you wanted, Johnny?" asked Kel, tightening his grip.

Johnny's eyes drifted shut, and he wasn't prepared for the suddenness of Kel's next move.  He felt himself pushed and dragged and flipped and the next thing he knew he was stretched full length on the couch, lying on his stomach with Kel on top of him, one knee between his thighs and his other foot braced on the floor.

"Or maybe this," Kel whispered.  He trailed his hand across Johnny's shoulder and down his arm to where his wrists were bound together.  "Do you like how this feels?"  His other hand found its way to Johnny's neck, pushing down just enough to get his point across.  "Do you like feeling helpless Johnny?"  The deep, rough voice played over every nerve ending.  Johnny bit his lip to keep from making a sound, and Kel pulled up on his wrists, just enough that he could feel the increased strain across his shoulders.  Unable to help himself, Johnny moaned and shifted underneath Kel, attempting to surreptitiously grind into the couch.  Kel laughed, the sound harsh and cynical.

Johnny felt him sit back a little, and then one hand worked its way underneath Johnny, unfastening his jeans.  Before Johnny could decide whether or not that was a good thing, Kel had his jeans and underwear yanked down almost to his knees.  Back in that van with four strangers, finding himself in this position had sent him into a blind panic.  This felt completely different.  Kel's presence behind him made him mindless with excitement, weak with anticipation.  Another groan escaped him as Kel grabbed his buttocks, squeezing and stroking.

"Feels good, Kel.  Please..."  _Please don't stop this time.  Don't run off and leave me hanging._

"Christ," muttered Kel, "you love this, don't you?"  He bent forward and bit down on the sensitive spot where Johnny's shoulder met his neck.  "You were ready to let those men do this to you."  His hand moved between Johnny's legs, prodding roughly at his entrance.  "And this."  He forced the tip of his finger inside and Johnny gasped.  Kel lay forward, letting his full weight rest on Johnny while his fingertip continued its rough movement.  His warm breath gusted against Johnny's ear.  "You do realize, don't you -- "   He shoved his finger in up to the knuckle, "that you could have been raped -- " the pressure and burn increased, and now two fingers plunged cruelly in and out.  "They could have driven you anywhere, used you however they wanted, beaten you or worse."

Johnny tensed, no longer enjoying what Kel was doing.  His shoulders ached, his hands were numb, he was dry inside and the fingers _hurt._ Gritting his teeth against the intrusion, he lay still, gasping harshly, waiting for it to get better.  "Please," he whispered finally.  "Kel.  Oh, shit.  _Don't_."

That's all it took.  Kel's fingers pulled out, and the weight disappeared as Kel eased off of him.  Johnny heard him moving away, and he lay still, waiting for the burn to fade, wishing he could just disappear.

"Sit up Johnny," came Kel's quiet voice.  "Open your eyes and look at me."

He considered ignoring him in the hopes that he would get bored and leave, but the silence went on and on.  Eventually, resigned to his utter loss of dignity, Johnny opened his eyes and struggled to pull his jeans back on and sit up.  Kel sat in the chair across from his, watching him with an unreadable expression, one fist clenching and unclenching where it lay on the armrest.  They regarded one another without speaking for another minute or two.

 Kel made a face that might have been described as a regretful grimace.  "I'm sorry, Johnny," he said.  "I shouldn't have....That absolutely crossed the line."  He leaned forward.  "What I said stands, however.  You took a huge risk tonight.  You see that, don't you?  Tell me you understand."

Johnny hesitated and then nodded, suddenly weary of it all, feeling exposed and dirty and foolish.  "Yeah.  I get it.  I'm..."  _An idiot.  A colossal fool.  And still a virgin._   He slumped against the couch, wincing.  Kel was beside him in an instant, carefully unfastening the belt, massaging his wrists and then his fingers, bringing the circulation back.  Johnny sat stiffly at first, still wary and avoiding Kel's searching gaze.  As the gentle touches continued, he relaxed, instinctively leaning towards Kel, relishing the simple contact.  When Kel moved even closer he tensed again, settling down when all Kel did was pull him in next to him.  Johnny sagged against him, resting his head against Kel's shoulder while the doctor's deft hands worked on loosening the knotted muscles in his shoulders.

He drifted a little, shutting off thought.  Kel's hands felt good, soothing and gentle.  The hands paused, and he gave a grumbling moan.  Kel chuckled.  He pushed his fingers into Johnny's hair, his thumb stroking the side of his face.  Johnny raised his head and looked at him.  Any lingering apprehension vanished at the warmth he saw in Kel's eyes.  He held Johnny's gaze for a few seconds and then lowered his head slowly and fitted their mouths together.  Johnny opened up to him, relaxing into the kiss, grasping Kel's upper arms to anchor himself.

Long minutes later, Kel broke off the kiss and stared soberly at him.

"Johnny," he said, sighed, and began again.  "The last time I was here, you offered me something, and I turned you down."  He rubbed his thumb over Johnny's lower lip.  "If it's still on offer...."

Johnny let his mouth fall open, his pulse speeding up when Kel's thumb slipped inside.  He sucked gently and nodded his head.  Kel regarded him seriously, nodded back slowly, and removed his thumb with a damp pop.

"Upstairs," Kel whispered.

"Yeah," Johnny breathed.  "Good plan."

"Now, Johnny."

Johnny smiled and rose to his feet.  "Okay.  Now would be good.  Now would be great."

 _Finally.  Finally._

He followed Kel up the stairs.


	5. Chapter 5

Trusting that Johnny was following, Kel walked without looking behind him, only stopping once he reached the center of Johnny's bedroom.  He held his breath until he heard the clack of Johnny's boot heels on the wood floor and then he turned slowly.  Johnny leaned in the doorway, hands shoved in his back pockets.  Kel searched Johnny's face for any sign of nerves or uncertainty.  He saw both, and silently cursed himself for his earlier temper and rough handling. 

 He gave him an encouraging smile.  "Come here, Johnny."

When they were standing less than a foot apart, he set his hands on Johnny's shoulders and pulled him close enough that their foreheads nearly rested together.  "You're still sure about this?"

Johnny's answer was to grab Kel's hips, pressing himself against Kel so that their erections rubbed together.   

"Good," Kel whispered.  He trailed his mouth down the side of Johnny's face until he found his lips and hummed in satisfaction at the way they softened and opened under him, inviting him to thrust his tongue inside and feast on the heat and sweetness.  His fingers slid up into Johnny's hair, burrowing into its soft thickness and curving around his skull.  Johnny wrapped his arms around him and latched on tight, making small, needy sounds in the back of his throat.

Kel lifted his head and gazed at Johnny, whose eyes had closed.  He watched, fascinated, as the thick, dark lashes rose to reveal brown eyes gone smoky and black with arousal.  The tails of Johnny's shirt hung in rumpled disarray in the front and partially tucked into the back of his unfastened jeans.  Feeling as if he was unwrapping the best Christmas present ever, Kel ran a hand down the front of Johnny's shirt, slipping the buttons free one after the other until the shirt was open.  Johnny's eyes never left his, but a small smile now tugged at one side of his expressive mouth.  Unable to resist, Kel dove back in for another taste, at the same time prodding him across the room until the back of Johnny's knees hit the bed.  Kel released him and stepped away to admire the view, deciding this was a good look on Johnny, clothes half-undone, lips swollen and damp with kisses, eyes heavy-lidded, smooth chest heaving as if he had run too far or was in danger of drowning.

"Undress," Kel said. 

Johnny responded as if he had been waiting forever to hear that one simple command, losing his shirt and then dropping onto the bed to pry off his boots and socks and shimmy out of jeans and boxers.  When he had divested himself of every stitch, he sat and fidgeted, appearing awkward and unsure of what to do next.  Kel drank in the view, unable for a moment to drag his gaze away from the sight of Johnny's erect cock.  He stroked his fingers up the side of Johnny's upturned face and caressed the top of his head.

"Lie on your back and get comfortable."

Johnny scrambled backwards to comply, in a move at once endearingly clumsy and breathtakingly erotic.  Kel reached for the top button of his own shirt, but he froze as he watched Johnny lift a hand to idly touch the side of his own cock, one finger moving lightly up and down, the other arm resting above his head.

 _Jesus._ It was all Kel could do not to leap on top of him, thrust inside and pound into that perfect ass....He took a deep, calming breath, reminding himself that after his earlier roughness, he owed Johnny some gentleness, at least to begin with.  As he unbuttoned his shirt, Johnny continued to put on a show, stroking himself until his cock jutted out in a beautiful curve, flushed and leaking.  Kel's shirt slid to the floor.  His mouth went dry when Johnny shifted on the bed and stretched both arms above his head.  While Kel fumbled with the top button of his pants, he watched Johnny's torso and arms strain towards the headboard, wrists crossed one over the other.

 _Huh._

Kel stared in fascination at the display in front of him, not sure if he was witnessing a seduction, an entreaty, or a little of both.  His own erection may have robbed his brain of blood and slowed his thought processes, but finally something clicked and he realized what Johnny was showing him, what he wanted. 

The cardboard box still sat under the bed where Kel remembered it, although Johnny must have shoved it out of sight because he had to get down on his knees and reach for it.  He dragged it into the light.  On the bed, Johnny's shifting movements had stopped and he seemed to be holding his breath.  Kel found what he was looking for and surged to his feet.  His triumphant grin vanished at Johnny's dark glare and the blush that had turned him red from the tips of his ears to the middle of his chest.

"How did you  -- "  Johnny struggled to sit up against the headboard.

Kel held up his hands in a placating gesture, the leather cuffs and adjoining stainless steel chain dangling and swaying.  "I saw them last time I was here.  I thought -- "

"You were snooping in my stuff?"  Johnny's eyebrows descended in a thunderous scowl.

"No!  I practically tripped over the damn things."

"Oh.  And you thought..."

Kel sat on the edge of the bed and laid the cuffs between them.  He noted with interest that Johnny's erection had not flagged in the least.  When he spoke, he softened his voice.  "I thought that just now you looked like someone who might like to feel these around your wrists, holding you in place while I..."  He brushed his fingers along the inside of Johnny's thigh, dragged them up the underside of his cock to the tip and rubbed his thumb over the damp slit before resting his hand on Johnny's stomach.  He couldn't help smiling a little smugly at Johnny's reactions.  His head was thrown back, hands clutching the bedspread, his breathing labored, his teeth clamped on his lower lip, muffling but not quite stifling a whining groan.

Kel lifted the cuffs and reached for Johnny's wrist.  "If this isn't what you want, all you need to do is say so."

Kel waited for several heartbeats while Johnny stared with intense concentration at Kel's hand.  Finally, his head lifted a fraction and he fixed Kel with a dark-eyed, questioning gaze.  "Please?" he whispered, and that was all Kel needed to hear.

As he buckled the first softly-lined leather cuff around one wrist, looped the metal chain through a sturdy slat on the headboard, and fastened the second cuff, he could feel the tension leaving Johnny's body, hear his breathing slow, and see the tranquil, trusting expression that settled over his features.  The effect was startling, almost as if he had been injected with a full dose of diazepam.  Kel didn't think he could ever get tired of watching this, but even as he admired the sight of Johnny once more laid out in front of him, he couldn't help but wonder at the effect the restraints had on the young man.  Perhaps there was a story there, or perhaps he was just innately wired to respond that way.  Kel supposed it didn't matter, except that Johnny needed to learn how to read people better, and not grant his trust so readily.

Those were musings for another time, however.  Right now he had more interesting things to do and think about.  He tongued Johnny's shoulder, and then let his hands roam over his smooth, tanned skin, unable to remember why he had been so quick to turn this down a week ago.  He nipped at Johnny's lower lip, kissed his throat, and circled his tongue around and around each flat brown aureole to the puckering nipple at the center.  One of Johnny's long legs snaked up around his hips and pulled him closer.  After another endless exploration of Johnny's pliant mouth, Kel lifted his head. 

Limpid brown eyes blinked slowly.  "Why d'you still have your pants on?" Johnny slurred, smiling.

Kel smiled back.  "Absolutely no idea.  What do you think?  Should I lose them?"

"Mmmmmm."

Taking that as a ‘ _yes'_ , Kel stripped off the rest of his clothes and knelt on the bed, straddling Johnny's thighs.  Bracing a hand on either side of Johnny's head, he leaned in for another kiss, rocking slightly so that their bare chests rubbed together and his cock snugged up next to Johnny's.  When he lifted his head, Johnny appeared dazed and loopy and as happy as he had ever seen him. 

"Damn, Doc.  Never knew you were so hairy."  His bent his leg behind Kel again and caressed his ass with the ball of his foot.  "Mmm.  Nice and firm.  Not bad for an old guy."

That surprised a laugh out of Kel.  "I'd be careful with the smart remarks when I've got you at my mercy like this."

He could actually see Johnny's pupils dilate and feel his breathing grow erratic.  His back arched a little and he strained against the cuffs until the tendons in his arms stood out clearly.  "So, ah, Doc...you gonna fuck me or what?"

Kel's cock jumped and suddenly taking things slow seemed like a ridiculous idea.  He cast a frantic look at the nightstand.  "Where's -- " he rasped.

"Drawer."  Johnny wrapped his other leg around Kel, humping against him and giving a frustrated groan when Kel leaned away to open the drawer and scrabble around inside, grabbing the lube and a handful of condoms, impatiently letting all but one flutter to the floor.  Johnny thrust again, bending his back at what seemed an impossible angle.  At this demonstration of Johnny's flexibility Kel's cock gave another twitch and he began to perspire.

With clumsy fingers he fumbled to get the lube open.  A slippery glob blurted onto his palm.  He tapped on Johnny's hip.   "Relax your legs," he instructed tersely.  "Lift up a little."  He shoved a pillow under Johnny's hips.  "Open up.  Wider.  That's it."

For several minutes, he concentrated on loosening Johnny up, impatient and focused as he pushed lube into his opening, the feel of the slick channel squeezing his fingers nearly undoing him.  He was surprised at how tight Johnny was, concluding it must have been a while since he had been penetrated.  When Kel pressed three fingers forcefully into him, Johnny yanked on the restraints and grunted and Kel glanced up to see Johnny watching him with half-closed eyes.

"You okay?"

Johnny swallowed noisily.  "Yeah.  Keep going."

Kel studied him for a moment, trying to interpret the stress he heard in the younger man's voice, but he could feel his own control unraveling way too fast and assumed Johnny was feeling the same urgent need to move things along.  "Johnny?  Everything all right?"

He gave a series of jerky nods.  "Just get on with it."

Kel might have laughed at Johnny's querulous tone, but the sight of him, the feel of him, and the need to possess him _right now_ sent any such thoughts flying out the window.  He sat back on his heels and picked up the condom.  Using his teeth, he ripped it open, rolled it onto his erect cock, and slicked himself up with a generous amount of lube.  Johnny made an inarticulate noise and Kel gave him a quizzical look.  Johnny's mouth had fallen slightly open, and Kel nearly lost it right then from the avid gaze that Johnny had fixed on him, like a starving man placed in front of a feast.

"Kel...wow, that's..."

He waited for Johnny to continue, but he seemed to have momentarily lost the power of speech.  Kel gave him a slow smile and stroked himself deliberately, keeping their gazes locked together.  Seconds passed with only the faint smacking suck of the lube being rubbed over latex, Johnny's uneven breaths, and the light metallic jingle of the cuffs breaking the silence.

"You ready for me?" murmured Kel.

Johnny blinked, appearing unable to tear his gaze away from Kel's hand where he stroked himself, and he spoke as if in a trance.  "That's...just...incredible."  He licked his lips and then seemed to belatedly realize that Kel had asked a question, darting a glance at Kel's face and back to his erect, bobbing cock.  "What?  Am I -- ?"  He looked suddenly nervous again.

Kel wiped his hand on the bedspread and scooted a little closer, grabbing Johnny's calves and settling his legs on top of his spread knees.  "Johnny.  Look at me.  No, look at my _face._ "  When he was satisfied that he had Johnny's attention, he stroked a hand up and down his leg, feeling the shiver that went through him.  He smiled.  "I want you to put your legs over my shoulders."

Johnny's eyes widened, but his young, flexible body had no trouble following Kel's instruction.  The sight was amazing, the slender body curved into a beautiful arch, arms pulled over his head, a light dew of perspiration covering him, and his long cock rock hard, purplish-red and leaking.  Kel wished he could step out of his own body for a moment, to be able to move back a few steps and savor the view.  Fearing he might come before he had a chance to feel Johnny's tight heat around him, he shut his eyes and squeezed the base of his own cock to keep himself from shooting like an over-eager teenager.

When he had himself under control, he opened his eyes and lined his cock up with Johnny's entrance.  He spared a quick glance at the young man's face to discover his eyes screwed shut and his chest moving spasmodically.  Kel pushed the tip of his cock into Johnny's hole, grunting in surprise at how tight he still was.  He pulled out and thrust again, putting a little more snap in his hips.  Johnny inhaled sharply and pulled down hard on the cuffs, his back arching even more.

"Relax, Johnny," Kel gasped.  He shifted back and then shoved forcefully, making it past the tightly resisting muscle.  A high-pitched, strangled sound emerged from Johnny's throat.  Kel froze.  "Johnny?  You doing okay?"

"Ah...no.  I dunno...can't...."  He was sweating freely, his face rigid with pain.

"Breathe, Johnny.  Deep breaths.  Damn it.  Would you just relax?"  Kel waited, starting to perspire himself at the effort required to stay still.  Johnny grabbed the headboard in a death grip, but Kel heard his breathing slow and become more even.  Taking that as permission to continue, he took a bruising grip on Johnny's hips and thrust hard, only to have Johnny cry out and thrash wildly, bracing one foot on Kel's shoulder in an effort to push him away.  Pulling back in surprise, he jerked his head out of the way to avoid getting kicked in the face.  "Whoa, calm down."

The wild movements paused, but Johnny remained tense.  "Sorry, Doc.  I wasn't expecting...that was intense."  He laughed weakly, but kept one foot on Kel's shoulder.

At Johnny's words, Kel's brain kicked into gear and all the clues Johnny had been throwing out finally made sense.  Moving slowly, he pulled carefully out of Johnny, helped him lower his legs, unfolded his own legs and sat on the edge of the bed with his back to Johnny, watching with detached interest as his erection wilted.  With a frustrated sigh, he snatched off the condom and tossed it on the nightstand and then glanced over his shoulder to find Johnny observing him worriedly. 

"You should have warned me," Kel said.

Johnny flushed.  "Warned you about what?"  His sheepish expression told Kel he knew exactly what he'd meant.

Kel clicked his tongue in annoyance.  "I assumed you had done this before."  Johnny just stared at him and Kel added under his breath, " _Idiot._ "

Finally Johnny looked down, brows drawn together.  "What's the big deal?"  When Kel didn't say anything, Johnny groaned.  "I didn't want to look stupid, all right?  Anyway, I didn't think it would matter."  His mouth twisted and he managed to look chagrined, seductive and achingly innocent all at once.  "What can I say?  I was horny.  I just sort of figured everything else would take care of itself."

"Of course it matters.  If I'd known, I would have been more careful, spent a little more time getting you ready.  Shit, Johnny."  He shook his head, awash with guilt.  A gentle touch on his shoulder made him look behind him and he nearly burst out laughing to see Johnny using his foot to try to comfort him.

To comfort _him._

All of his assumptions and opinions of Johnny Gage contorted and flipped and an entirely different view came into sharp focus at that moment.  This young man was more than his prickly disposition, his off-kilter ideas, his impulsive, self-destructive behavior, or his effortless sensuality.  Kel turned toward Johnny, studying the complicated expression of longing and sorrow and breathless expectancy on Johnny's face and then dropped a kiss on the top of his foot and set it on the bed.  Johnny sighed, as if preparing for disappointment.

The surge of possessiveness Kel had experienced earlier that evening returned stronger than ever, fierce and tender at the same time.

"Let's get you out of these," he murmured, and leaned over to unfasten the leather cuffs. 

"What?  No!"  Johnny backed towards the headboard.  "You can't leave yet.  Let's try again.  I just panicked a little.  I swear I want this.  Don't go.  _Please._ "

 A pang like a fire-heated arrow seemed to pierce Kel's chest.  "I'm not going anywhere."  He caressed Johnny's arm.  "But we need to lose the cuffs."

Although Johnny didn't look convinced, he allowed Kel to remove the restraints.  "I liked having them on," he said defensively.  "They felt really good."

"Oh, believe me...I liked seeing you wear them."  He tossed the cuffs on the floor.  "We'll save them for another time, all right?"

"Another...?"

"Yes.  Right now we don't need the distraction."

"But to be clear, you still plan to fuck me?"

"Most definitely."

"Tonight?" 

"Oh, yes.  Now stop talking for a few minutes."

Johnny gave a fervent nod.

"Good.  Let's try something a little different this time.  Roll on your side with your back to me."

Johnny hesitated, then did as Kel requested.  He pulled him close, enjoying the feel of long, lean John Gage fitted against him, and the way his own cock nestled against Johnny's ass. 

"Our first goal is to get you nice and relaxed again."

"You could put the cuffs back on me."

"Johnny...."

"All right.  All right.  What next?"

"I said no talking."  Kel paused to make sure Johnny was done.  Satisfied, he nuzzled the back of his neck.  "All I need you to do now is _feel_.  Just let me do all the work."

Johnny mumbled something that sounded like, "I think that's supposed to be my line."

Kel smacked his hip.  "Hush."

"Mmph."

Unable to stop his amused smirk, Kel reflected that whatever else Johnny might be - aggravating, infuriating, stubborn as hell - he would never be boring.  _I'll probably spend half the time wanting to strangle him, and the other half laughing my ass off.  And every second of it wanting to fuck his brains out._

He held Johnny against him, rubbing slow circles on his chest, dragging his thumbs over hardening nipples.  As he kissed the back of his neck and underneath his ear, one hand drifted down to trail feather light touches between Johnny's thighs.  When he heard him sigh, and felt his relaxed weight settle against him, Kel took his cock in his hand and began stroking, slowly and not too vigorously, not wanting to send Johnny over the edge just yet.

"Kel..."

"Shhh..."

As Kel stroked Johnny, he rocked against him, rapidly reviving both of their erections.  Neither spoke, Kel being too intent on working Johnny into a state of gasping arousal, and Johnny finally giving himself over completely to whatever Kel wanted to do to him.  When Kel judged that they had gained back all the ground lost by his earlier impatience, he wrapped both arms around Johnny's chest and murmured in his ear, "Ready to finish what we started?"

A slow nod.

"Would it be all right -- "  Kel hesitated.  "What would you think about skipping the condom this time?"  He held his breath and felt a surge of excitement when Johnny bit back a groan and nodded again.  "Good, because I want you to feel it when I come inside of you."

Kel turned Johnny onto his back and lay half on top of him.  Starting with his mouth, he tasted his way an inch at a time down his front to his cock, ending with a brief kiss to its tip before sitting back on his haunches.  "Roll over," he said.

Johnny raised an eyebrow, but silently obeyed, apparently having taken Kel's ban on speech to heart.  Kel positioned him the way he wanted, manipulating the unresisting young man like a marionette, pushing a pillow under his hips, pressing down on his back until he leaned forward to rest on his elbows, and spreading his knees as far apart as they would go.  When he had arranged him to his satisfaction, he took a moment to admire the effect and then started in again stretching and loosening him, using generous amounts of lubrication, gentle fingers and infinite patience. 

 

@@@@@@@@@@

 

Johnny knelt with his lowered head resting on his arms and his ass in the air, trying his best to do as Kel had instructed and relax.  The fingers inside him felt weird, but at least he knew what to expect this time, and managed to keep still and bite back on any squeaks or grunts of discomfort as the pressure increased with each additional finger.  After what seemed an eternity, the discomfort began to transform into something better, something hot and dark and exciting that had him rocking his hips backwards and forwards to meet the thrusting fingers.  He stopped holding back the sounds that forced their way out of him, panting and gasping and moaning in rhythm with Kel's fingers, so that when Kel paused suddenly, Johnny found himself thrown off balance for a moment.  Kel's fingers curled inside of him and brushed his prostate and suddenly every nerve in his body seemed to shift to that one spot and spark back through him.  When he could breathe again, a strangled groan gurgled up from the back of his throat and he began to hump again in earnest as Kel's fingers targeted the same spot over and over.

"Shit, Kel.  Oh, shit.  Oh, fuck.  That's incredible.  That's...you have to...don't stop.  Don't ever stop doing that!"

Kel's fingers kept going and he leaned in to murmur in Johnny's ear, his voice a low, throaty rumble that vibrated through Johnny's sensitized nerve endings and made him shiver.  "You like that, huh?  You're going to like what comes next even better."  His fingers slowed to a stop and then withdrew, and he gave a soft laugh at Johnny's disappointed groan.  "You feel amazing, Johnny.  If I don't get inside you now this is going to be over way too soon."  Johnny felt Kel's cock resting on his lower back.  Kel caressed the back of his head.  "You sure you're ready for this?"

Johnny nodded, but Kel just held him, rubbing his hips and pressing slow, damp kisses against his shoulder blade.  Johnny nodded again.  "Yes," he rasped.  "Yes.  Yes yes yes.  _Yes_ , damn it!"

A rough chuckle.  "Okay.  Slow and gradual."

"Kel...."

"I'm right here.  Now open up for me."

"Easy for you to - _ahhh, shit shit shit._ "  Despite his best intentions, he clenched instinctively against the painful invasion, and heard Kel hiss.

"If you want this, you need to relax and accept me.  If you can do that, it will get better, I promise.  Just breathe.  Relax and trust me."

Strained and a little rough, Kel's low murmur washed over and through Johnny, working its way into him bit by bit, easing its way inside, until any resistance just seemed to dissolve.  Even as he let go and his defenses disintegrated, he felt Kel's cock slide home, fitting and filling him.  He longed for Kel to start moving, to push and thrust and claim him as his own, but he waited, certain now that he could trust Kel to take care of him and give him what he needed.

One wide, blunt hand settled over his belly, and the other stroked up and down the back of his thigh.  "God, Johnny, you feel...astonishing."  Kel slid out almost leisurely, then all the way back in, his breath gusting out of him.  Soft, wiry chest hair brushed along Johnny's back.  "Still... _ahh, god_...still doing okay?"

Johnny nodded.  "I need...need _more_."  He felt so full, so completely owned by Kel.  "Don't hold back.  Move, Kel.  Move, damn it!"

He both heard and felt the growl that ripped out of Kel's throat.  The weight on his back disappeared as Kel shifted backwards to kneel upright.  He grabbed hold of Johnny's hips and with a sharp intake of breath did just as Johnny had asked, powering in and out, establishing a rhythm, increasing the tempo, pounding and pounding, causing Johnny's teeth to rattle and his eyes to screw shut against the intensity and pain and - and then the angle changed and supernovas exploded in his brain as Kel slammed into his prostate and kept going and going, grunting and flinging droplets of sweat onto Johnny's back.  Kel's arms swept up underneath Johnny's armpits, easily lifting him to fit his back against Kel's chest, never slowing or slackening the pace.

"Getting close," he rumbled in Johnny's ear.  "Grab yourself." 

"Wha -- ?"  Sweat lubricated the slide of Kel's chest against his back.  The world was heat and movement and moisture and sparks of pleasure and the sound of his own gasps and squeaks and gulps of air.

"Touch yourself," Kel practically barked in his ear.  "Jerk yourself off."

 _Oh._   Johnny thought he might come just from the feel of Kel inside him, but he grabbed his cock and stroked wildly and without finesse, rough and hard, in frenzied counterpoint to Kel's thrusts.  Seconds later he was coming, shooting hot semen up his chest, all the way to his chin, a strangled noise bursting out of him which sounded something like, "Gurhawwwr!!"  His ass spasmed around Kel even as the other man froze and gave a hoarse, triumphant shout, pulsing and filling Johnny with a gush of liquid heat.  His arms slid down to encircle Johnny's chest, holding him in a crushing grip as they both shook and trembled with the aftershocks of their orgasms.

Minutes later, Johnny realized he was lying on his stomach again.  Kel withdrew from him, and a spill of cooling semen trickled down his thigh.  Kel kissed the back of his neck, rolled off of him and let one hand lie possessively on Johnny's back as they both struggled to catch their breath.

"Whew," sighed Kel.  "I don't think I've ever come so hard in my life.  I think my brain may have liquefied."

Johnny turned his head to look at him, enjoying the sight of a sweaty, disheveled Dr. Brackett.  He started to lift up, wanting to move closer and get a taste of the salty sweat trickling down the sight of Kel's face, but the other man pushed him back down, although without much force.

"You just lie still for the time being.  I'm going to clean up, and then I need to play doctor for just a minute."

Johnny gave a good-natured groan.

"No arguments.  Stay where you are, just like that."

It wasn't exactly a hardship for Johnny to lie like a boneless pile of jelly, sore but as limp and mellow as he could ever remember feeling.  When he felt Kel's fingers probing him again, he glanced over his shoulder and gave him a lazy smile.  "Can't get enough of me?"

Kel laughed.  "No point in denying it, I guess.  But I'm just making sure I didn't get carried away earlier."

"And?"

"And I'm happy to report that your delectable little butt will live to pleasure me another day."

Johnny snorted.  "Another day is right.  I don't think my butt can take much more tonight."

"Or tomorrow, or for a couple of days at least.  Here.  Clean yourself up and let's get some sleep."

Something damp hit the middle of his back and he grabbed behind him for the washcloth Kel had dropped.

"I don't know, Doc."  He rolled onto his side and stroked the washcloth over himself.  "If I let you stay, can I trust you to keep your hands to yourself?"  He grinned impishly and tossed the washcloth in the general direction of the bathroom.

Kel raised an eyebrow.  "Old guy here, remember?  You damn near killed me.  The only thing I have the energy for right now is lying down right here and passing out."  His expression grew serious.  "You, uh, mind if I stay?"

"Are you kidding?  If you try to leave I might have to use those cuffs on you."

Kel stretched out on the bed, yawning hugely.  "Huh.  Get over here and let me hold you."

Johnny scooted over next to him, settling contentedly next to Kel and giving a happy sigh as Kel leaned over to kiss his forehead before dropping exhaustedly next to him face down, his arm draped over Johnny's ribcage, pinning him to the mattress.  Johnny stared up at the ceiling, blinking against the sudden sting in his eyes.  A stray moonbeam highlighted the cuffs where Kel had tossed them on the floor.  All at once, he couldn't remember why he had been so obsessed with them.  Having Kel lying next to him with his arm weighing him down felt every bit as good as the cuff had.  Kel's arm tightened around him and he began snoring softly.  Johnny's face split into a grin.  Right at that moment it felt as if he had everything he wanted.

He was definitely keeping the cuffs, though. 

 

 

 **Epilogue**

 

"I know I've got them here somewhere."  Dixie walked her fingers through the files in the drawer, her mouth twisting in annoyance.  Nothing was where it was supposed to be.  "Looks like Betty got bored and ‘organized' things again."  She gave Johnny an apologetic smirk and continued searching the files.

From where he leaned against the counter, Johnny shrugged and grinned down at her.  "No problem, Dix.  Rogers could be a while."

She straightened slowly, remembering the last time Johnny and Dan Rogers had been partnered together.  " _He's_ the one they've got covering for Roy?"  Johnny nodded, still smiling and appearing perfectly at ease, as if the two of them had not nearly come to blows a couple of weeks ago.  "And you're okay with that?"

"Sure.  Sure.  You know, he's really a pretty good guy once you get to know him."

Dixie gaped in disbelief and then narrowed her eyes speculatively.   Something was definitely up with Johnny.  The tension and jumpiness which had seemed to be his constant companions for the last few months had vanished.  Curious, she asked casually, "So how is Roy doing?"

"He's doing great.  You know, he and JoAnne had me over for dinner the other night?  Man, she made the most incredible lasagna.  And I finally got to meet their kids.  You wouldn't believe how adorable their little girl is.  What a great family.  Made me a little jealous, to tell you the truth."  He shrugged and took a sip of coffee.

Well, that explained Johnny's sudden cheerfulness.  Roy's accident had really rattled him, but Roy was fine, therefore Johnny was fine as well.  Mystery solved.  She went back to searching the drawer for the pamphlet Johnny had requested.  She was bent down and effectively hidden behind the nurses' station, which is why Kel didn't see her when he came down the hallway half a minute later and stopped right next to Johnny.  Her jaw nearly hit the ground at the sound of Kel's deep voice, gone all gruff and sexy and intimate, murmuring softly to someone who could only have been Johnny, "Well, hello.  Wasn't sure you'd make it in after last night.  How's that cute butt of yours feeling -- "

Johnny cleared his throat loudly, drowning out the rest of what Kel said.  "Dixie was just getting me some information," he practically shouted.

 _Oh, my._   Dixie eased up from behind the counter to be greeted by two very red, very sheepish male faces.  "Hi there," she said drily.  Both men appeared frozen and at a loss for words.  Dixie gave them a serene smile and held out the pamphlet to Johnny.  "Found it."

"Uh.  Ha ha.  Thanks, Dix."  He flicked a sideways glance at Kel.  "Just, you know, picking up something for Rogers.  He's trying to quit smoking, so...you know...advice...."  His voice trailed off and he bit his lip.

Just then, the door to treatment room three opened and Dan Rogers emerged, followed by the sound of Dr. Morton's voice.  "Thanks, Rogers.  Take it easy."

"You bet."

Rogers spotted Johnny and grinned.  "You ready to go?"

"Yep.  Sure am."  He waved the pamphlet.  "Got a little light reading for you."  He cast a nervous look at Dixie, smiled tightly at Kel (although Dixie didn't miss the subtle eyebrow waggle that accompanied the smile) and beat a hasty retreat, talking a mile a minute to Rogers.  She could still hear his happy laughter as the ER doors closed behind them.

She turned slowly to Kel.  _Oh, she was going to enjoy this_.

"Well.  Johnny sure seems like a changed man."

He sighed.  "Go on.  Get it all out of your system."

She batted her eyes at him, the picture of innocence.  "Whatever do you mean?  Although I did notice that some sort of epidemic of cheerfulness seems to have broken out around here.  I was thinking of insisting you let me take your temperature.  Or did Johnny take care of that for you...last night?"

"Wow, Dix.  You're hilarious."

She shook her head.  "I'm shocked, Kel.  How could you seduce that sweet young man?"

"Keep your voice down.  And that's not exactly how it happened."

"He seduced you?"

"A little of both, actually.  Not that it's any of your business."

"I beg to differ.  Am I not the closest thing you have to a friend around here?"

She watched him try with little success to hold onto his expression of tight-lipped, flinty-eyed annoyance.  "Fine.  I'll take you out for a drink and tell you all about it."  The grin he had been fighting finally broke through his stern expression.  "Well, maybe not _all_ about it."

"Hmm.  So... his butt, huh?  It's pretty cute?"

"I think your phone's ringing."

"How _does_ it feel?"

"Gotta go, Dix."

"Kel?"

As he disappeared down the hall in the direction of his office, she gave voice to a full-throated laugh that she didn't even bother trying to explain to Morton when he wandered by and gave her an odd look.

 _Johnny Gage and Kel Brackett,_ she thought. _About damn time._

 

 **The End**


End file.
